Editor’s Note: Blog entry is written by Jessica and only posted by Heather.

Hey guys! My name is Jessica Metcalf and I’m from Maiden, NC, a tiny town about two and a half hours west of Durham. I am a rising junior at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where I’m studying Public Relations. Growing up, I always wanted to be a doctor with a desire to help people. Then I realized that the medical field was about so much more than a typical Grey’s Anatomy episode, and I decided it wasn’t for me. I went into my freshman year of UNC having no idea what my future held. It was overwhelming, yet incredibly humbling to walk blind and fully trust the Lord’s plan for my life. Before registering for classes at the end of my freshman year, I was forced to sit down and declare a major. Eventually, I settled with Journalism and Mass Communication. I say settled because I wasn’t quite sure if that was in my future.

This past year, the Lord has just solidified my decision to work in Public Relations and has shown me over and over again that He has a future planned for me in this field. It’s a relief to finally be able to answer someone when they ask the dreaded question, “So what do you want to do with your life?”

My summer at DurhamCares was literally dropped into my lap in the form of a church bulletin at The Summit Church. These past few weeks at DurhamCares have been exciting and incredibly encouraging. I’m working on planning the Durham tours, which will introduce Durham residents to new parts of the city and offer opportunities to engage with their neighbors in a new way.
I’m often so absorbed in the UNC bubble during the school year, focusing on school and other activities,  I forget that there’s so much going on in my community around me. I’ve been at UNC for two years now, yet I’d never bothered learning more about such an amazing city a few miles down the road from me. As I learn more about this city from people I meet and talk to, I’m beginning to see why Durham is so amazing.

It’s refreshing to work with a group of people who truly have a heart for Durham and for engaging residents with their communities. I’m looking forward to the learning more from DurhamCares the rest of the summer and truly living out the phrase, “love your neighbor.”

Editor's Note: posted by Heather but written by Maria!

Hey! I'm Maria. Although I'm originally from Cincinnati, once summer ends, I'll be returning to finish my Bachelor's degree at the University of Dallas - all the way down in Texas. What drew me to DurhamCares was its warm and wholehearted spirit. It is an organization that is prepared to make deliberate steps for positive change. The everyday fervor I find at the workplace is absolutely contagious. As a philanthropic organization, it stands out. DurhamCares is an organization that seeks to enrich Durham with the tools it already has: well-established charities and an enthusiastic, colorful community.

I'm still unsure of what my future entails after this summer, but I hope my experience as an intern gives me insight into the individuals of this unique and robust community, a community that is fervent in its wanting to improve. From what I've seen, Durham is far from being apathetic, and I look forward to using my talents this summer to help DurhamCares engage this diverse community. I hope to help Durham serve as a paradigm of involvement and pride that other communities around the world will later embrace and emulate.

Currently, I'm creating an informational DurhamCares video with Thomas. I am also co-organizing community interviews with Jonathan, editing, and eventually compiling our videotaped work onto the web.

So we want you to meet the interns working at DurhamCares this summer.  It's a great team with diverse skills and interests and we're having a great time together.   Tune in every day for the next five days and meet an intern!

Left to Right: Lauren Wishon, Jessica Metcalf, Thomas Payne, Jonathan Clarke, Maria Murdock

As you may recall, I promised to write a series of blogs about entrepreneurship. As an entrepreneur, I am remarkably biased about entrepreneurship, but I do think that the creativity, innovation and hard work that it requires can be a big part of Durham's economic development and resurgence. As entrepreneurs develop plans to engage in the community through volunteerism programs for their companies and employees (see bandwidthcares.org for an example), I think that entrepreneurship will bring much more to Durham than just the creation of wealth and jobs (though those are good goals as well, of course....particularly when that new found wealth is reinvested back in the community).

I firmly believe that the seeds for entrepreneurship can be sown very early in life. LemonadeDay (please see the blog on this from last week) hits on this concept, and so do video games. Video Games? Yes, video games. The folks from the Acton Foundation for Entrepreneurship have created a series of compelling video games to engage youth in learning the basics of entrepreneurship. http://www.actonsims.com/

If your kids are like my kids, video games are a huge draw. Kimberley and I don't have video games at the house but do allow our boys (we have 3, ages 3,5,7) to play games on my iphone when we are travelling. This has worked great for us, as it takes away some of the tedium of long wait in the airport, even if we just limit it to 30 minutes. The draw, though, of video games is so great that it's enough to tell them that they can play them later in the trip to keep them well behaved and excited. I'm not sure if video games had the same control over me while growing up, but the games (pong, then space invaders and pacman) weren't nearly as good as the ones that are out now. Ok, so far I'm not telling you anything that you didn't already know. So here goes:
You'll see from the actonsims website that there are several different games to play.

There are single player games like Galactic Zappers that teach kids how to overcome operations bottlenecks, and multiplayer games like Price Point. One of Acton's games that has been reviewed by gamesforchange.org that seems to have gotten some traction:
From: http://www.gamesforchange.org/main/gameprof/731

RoboRush! is meant to teach students how to build a business from the ground up. Students will start a small robot-manufacturing business through grassroots methods: pursuing sales, running efficient operations, and learning to say ‘no' to less-profitable customer requests. As the student progresses they will have the opportunity to scale up the business by making sound decisions and taking risks. In growing the business the student has the opportunity to hire staff, open a storefront, and even open a factory. As they do, they will find that the game play becomes more challenging as they find that managing staff, monitoring demand, and balancing profitability are not as easy as they may have originally imagined.

Another game associated with helping youth get interested in entrepreneurship is from the NFIB Young Entrepreneur Foundation is Johnny Money: www.NFIB.com/jmog. This looks to be worth checking out as well. Undoubtedly there are more online games as well, and I hope that folks add to this list in the comment section.

I still think that the best way to teach kids about entrepreneurship is through LemonadeDay.org, but as that program is designed to run once a year (though there's nothing holding kids back, of course, from doing it more frequently), these video games may present part of the solution for planting the seeds of entrepreneurship in Durham's kids from an early age...seeds that will hopefully sprout, grow and flourish to Durham's benefit for many years to come.

Check out our new Durham digs!

We hope you'll be able to join us to Celebrate Durham - tonight 6pm at the American Tobacco Campus downtown Durham!

Last week I was asked to moderate a panel as a part of a conference on entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City. With so much that I learned top of mind, and as this topic is of great interest to David and I, and something we think that Durham very much needs more of I'm going to dedicate the next 5 blogs to the topic of entrepreneurship.

Installment #1: How Lemonade can transform Durham. A study of lemonadeday and why we need to bring it to Durham

Installment #2: Video Games, and why they may be the answer to youth entrepreneurship in Durham

Installment #3: Virgin Money - how friends and families can invest more safely with those they know

Installment #4: HotShotBusiness.com

Installment #5: The new entrepreneurship initiative in Durham Public Schools

How Lemonade Can Transform Durham
A study of LemonadeDay and why we need to bring it to Durham

Michael Holthouse is a remarkably inspiring man. When you click on the video link that follows this post you'll see exactly what I mean. His enthusiasm is infectious and you know that he's a man that won't be denied. He was a very successful entrepreneur selling his company for a good sum of money to Sprint in 1997 and committed his life to working with disadvantaged youth. We were talking about our faith and how God can speak to us through our vocations. When he went to illustrate the point I heard the story of lemonadeday.

3 years ago his 10 year old daughter woke him up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning after he had come in late from a Friday night gala event. He had promised her that he'd help her with a lemonade stand as she was set on buying a new iPod, one that he had told her she'd need to earn, even though he could obviously afford to buy it for her. So blurry eyed he set out to do just that. Together they got the materials from the pantry and began to make batches of lemonade while he talked and asked questions of her relating to price, sales pitch, and inventory and later in the morning they went out to sell her wares. She did very well. At first she thought that all of the money was hers, but her Dad then told her that she needed to repay for the materials that she had used, and that some of the money left over needed to go to people less fortunate than they.

The experience was so rewarding for both of them that Michael set out to encourage other families in Houston to do the same. One year later, he set up the first lemonade day in Houston by working with schools and community partners. In one day 2,500 lemonade stands were set up all over the city! A year later, they did it again. This time 11,000! Just 2 weeks ago on May 3 there were 17,450 stands selling 2.4 million glasses of lemonade! At a rate of a few glasses per customer, he estimates that more than 1million people in Houston were touched by this initiative and many more in first year events in Austin, Detroit and his small hometown in Indiana.

The success and the scale of lemonadeday isn't what's most impressive about this project. What is most impressive is how such a simple concept that we are all familiar with can teach so many valuable lessons and provide so much benefit to the children of Durham and ultimately to the city at large.

0. FAMILIES. This is an activity that brings families together. Michael talks warmly about how much he enjoyed working on this project with his daughter and to see her excitement. She undoubtedly thought the same. The same can be said, I'm sure, of brothers/sisters/mothers/cousins and even grandparents that participated in other lemonade stands.
0. ECON 101. The entrepreneurial lessons are many. Basic lessons regarding pricing/competition/raw materials/gross margin/profit/cash flow and inventory are all taught in easily applied lessons. One more that might not be so obvious: owner's equity. Usually friends will stop by to help. At the end of the day many will think they're entitled to an equal share of the till. Watch the look on your child's face as they explain that it was they that set it all up, found the spot to sell, and ultimately took the risk. They've just learned a great lesson on ownership, risk and profit sharing.
0. CHARITY. Parents have a great opportunity to encourage kids to take some of the money earned and invest in local charities. In Houston, kids gave away more than $250,000 to local charities. Lemonade stands are effectively teaching entrepreneurship AND philanthropy.
0. TITHING. Think that your explanations to your children on why you put money in the offering plate each Sunday (and how much) ring a bit hollow? This will help them understand how to return the tithe back to God.
0. ACCOMPLISHMENT. It's a beautiful thing to see your child rewarded from their hard work and then enjoy the fruits of their labors. Their new iPod, trip to the movies, or new pair of Crocs will give them a sense of fulfillment and appreciation not attributed to anything else they own.

Now, please watch the attached video and let us know if you'd like to be involved with us at DurhamCares in bringing this to Durham!

So, just an update on 3 things for you:

0. Henry's hair is still on the line and getting longer and longer everyday!  Right now we have 144 people pledging towards our goal of 350. Thanks to everyone who has already made a pledge.  If you haven't yet would you take a look at the site and make a pledge and then tell a friend as well? www.durhamcares.org/index.php/grant.
0. To celebrate Durham (and hopefully shave Henry's hair!) we'll be having an event at Tyler's in the American Tobacco Complex from 6-8pm next Thursday 5/21. This will be a really fun time to meet up with your neighbors, hear some live music, buy some good food and drink from a local establishment and celebrate lots of great things happening in Durham.
0. We've upgraded the pledging functionality on our website to make it easier to pledge to great organizations in Durham and to make multiple pledges at once. Check it out: www.durhamcares.org/index.php/grant and make a pledge.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or feedback don't hesitate to contact me, Heather Jones, at hjones@durhamcares.org.

Last Thursday night, some young Durham football players got a little extra motivation to do well in school and go to college.

The Pop Warner football Durham Eagles League gave out 27 scholarships. Most of the boys were in their young teens. Some were even younger. The boys will get the $1,000 scholarships once they get accepted to a post-secondary school like a technical college or university.

"Football teaches so many things about life," said Durham Eagles founder Don Jones. "Discipline, teamwork, focus ... it's just a world of things that are going to serve you outside of the football field."

Scott Stankavage , who was a professional football player and whose son played with the organization, made the scholarships possible.

"It gives you a lot of motivation," said Christopher Howard, a Hillside High student and Durham Eagle. "It gives something to look back on and something that will make you go forward and want to go to college and make something out of your life."

These Pop Warner football Durham Eagles players are now called the "Elite Eagles." The founders say their coaches selected them because they demonstrated outstanding performance and potential, either academically or altruistically.

Reposted from: http://durham.mync.com/site/durham/news%7CSports%7CLifestyles/story/32782/young-durham-football-players-get-1000-scholarships