Safely Out's Swim For Life Event

During an election night party Bill Romanelli of APCO Worldwide approached Gary Dietrich, founder of Citizen Voice and Safely Out, saying that he wanted to swim a 10k to raise 10k for Safely Out.  As the weeks and months went by the event slowly evolved into something more. Saturday's "Swim for Life," hosted by California Family Fitness, included not only Bill swimming a 10k (440 laps), but the "Sports Guy Celebrity Floatie Challenge" featuring Gary Dietrich, Pat Walsh (the "Sports Guy" from KFBK 1530) and KTXL FOX 40's Paul Robbins and many other local swimmers.  All swam laps to raise money to put Safely Out kits into the hands of our most vulnerable citizens. The no rules "Floatie Challenge" was won by Paul Robbins, who did pre-interviews in his hippo tie, suit jacket and board shorts and Bill completed his Swim for Life, doing two extra laps, in about 2.5 hours. It was a great event and most importantly we not only had great pre-event and event coverage of Good Day Sacramento, Fox 40 and KFBK and will be featured in an upcoming edition of Sacramento Magazine, but thousands of dollars were raised to help continue to distribute Safely Out kits across the Sacramento region. The Safely Out team and I are looking forward to bringing some changes to next year's "Swim for Life" to bring additional media coverage and increase public participation, so stay tuned for updates and click here to learn more about the important work that Safely Out is doing in our community.

River Cats

I try to go to at least one River Cats game a year and my trip this year was a special one.  On Wednesday afternoon I was having lunch at Costa Vida with a Bible Study that I am in and one of the guy's got an e-mail letting him know that the Smile Business Products Suite was available for Thursday night's game against the Portland Beavers.  Although the home team lost 5 to 4, the Suite was amazing.  First it wasn't in the sun (I normally sit on the third base side), second it had air conditioning, third it had amazing food (hamburgers, hot dogs, fantastic potato salad, rich chocolate brownies and of course peanuts and popcorn), fourth it was a Suite, fifth, well it was a Suite.  This now brings my Suite visits to about three, most of them in the Raley's Suite at Arco Arena, which begs the question if Raley's has a Suite at Arco Arena does Arco (BP) have a Suite at Raley Field? The one Suite I know I may not get, the Luxury Box or Sky Box upgrades at Bayside's Thrive 2010.

SAFELY OUT™ “Swim for Life”

MEDIA ADVISORY

SAFELY OUT™ “Swim for Life”

WHAT:

Swim-A-Thon and more to raise funds for SAFELY OUT™ disaster evacuation kits.

WHEN:

Saturday, April 24, 2010 – 1:00 pm

   Schedule:

    - Bill Romanelli Available for interviews
               12:45 pm to 1:00 pm
    - Bill Romanelli starts 10k swim
               1:00 pm (should finish around 3:30 pm)
    - The “Sports Guy” Celebrity Floatie Challenge
               1:15 pm
    - General public swim for SAFELY OUT™ 
               1:45 pm to 3:30 pm
    - Gary Dietrich available for interviews
               throughout the event

WHO: 

Volunteer swimmers of all ages, radio and television personalities, elected officials, swim teams/clubs and other Citizen Voice/SAFELY OUT™ project supporters.

WHERE:

California Family Fitness – Natomas (map)

3880 Innovator Drive

Sacramento, CA 95834

(916) 239-4455

WHY: 

With its mission to help protect the vulnerable during disasters, Citizen Voice’s SAFELY OUT™ Project has produced and distributed over 35,000 thousand SAFELY OUT™ Kits. These simple kits provide valuable tools which help evacuees move to safety and alert rescuers to the need for emergency assistance.

All funds raised from the SAFELY OUT™ Swim for Life event will be used to produce and distribute these emergency evacuation kits to the vulnerable in the Sacramento region, as well as throughout California as the program rolls out state and nationwide. Every $10,000 raised will provide 1,000 new SAFELY OUT™ kits.

HOW:

SAFELY OUT™ Swim for Life “Swim-A-Thon” will raise money by inviting individuals, friends, family members and businesses to pledge a contribution for each lap or pledge a flat donation for the complete swim. Master swimmer Bill Romanelli, VP of APCO Worldwide, and dozens of others from the Sacramento community will swim to collect sponsorship pledges. Romanelli promises to swim an entire 10K (approximately 440 laps, in a standard 25-yard pool) in a single session. Individual community members, swim teams, and others are invited to swim alongside Romanelli for one lap or dozens. A $500 prize will go to the nonprofit organization that recruits the most swimmers.

The “Sports Guy” Celebrity Floatie Challenge

Swim for Life is also getting local celebrities involved, including sports commentators and media personalities from the Sacramento region who will take to the water to help raise funds for SAFELY OUT™. The celebrity who garners the most contributions will receive a coveted three-second lead in “The ‘Sports Guy’ Celebrity Floatie Challenge,” a no-holds-barred floatie race among celebrities where anything goes!

Multi-media:

Event Web site:

http://www.citizenvoice.org/swimforlife.shtml 

Humorous YouTube Promotional Video with Citizen Voice President Gary Dietrich and “Sports Guy” Pat Walsh:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY8y3QB_5ew

Facebook Event Page:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=349038858691&ref=ts

About SAFELY OUT™

SAFELY OUT™ Kits may be ordered through www.Citizenvoice.org. A suggested $10 contribution per Kit is requested. Kits are also sponsored by local agencies, nonprofits, faith-based organizations and businesses and distributed for free to the vulnerable, especially to those with limited means.

About Citizen Voice

Citizen Voice is a 501C3 nonprofit, nonpartisan movement with a mission to inspire, inform and involve citizens in the public arena on behalf of all, especially the vulnerable. Citizen Voice fulfills its mission by fostering active participation in the public arena as well as involving citizens in both practical immediate intervention and work towards long-term changes that protect the vulnerable. For more information on Citizen Voice, visit www.CitizenVoice.org.

About California Family Fitness

California Family Fitness is based in Northern California with 16 different facilities, and is committed to providing families in the community a means to live a healthy lifestyle together. For current promotions, specials, fitness tips and CFF news please visit www.californiafamilyfitness.com.

Questions? Contact Liz Jackson (916) 503-3194 or Andrew Bradley (510) 910-3443 or

e-mail them at swimforlife@citizenvoice.org

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The Big Build

Although I haven't flown anywhere lately, I have been to the Sacramento International Airport a lot over the last few days picking up and dropping off my cousin and my parent's. The Big Build (aka airport expansion project) is well underway and I can't wait until I can fly out of it in just over 21 months. For those taking notes, my next scheduled flight is not for another 46 days (June 5th), I will be heading up to Oregon for my cousin's wedding.

Time lapse photos of the project

From Sheriff to Groom

I always enjoy going to weddings. I get to see old friends, visit new places and see how each couple makes their wedding special and unique. My friend Matt's wedding on Saturday evening was no different. As a Sheriff and Rancho Cordova police officer his police car was parked in the walkway as we entered the church, complete with "just married" and heart stickers on the back window. The ceremony was beautiful, complete with the rose peddles and candles lining the center aisle, Matt's dog as ring bearer and the "pouring of sand" ceremony which I think is a really cool keepsake for the bride and groom to keep after their wedding to remember that two lives became one on their special day. After the ceremony we headed to the party at the Sunrise Event Center, where we had great food, great conversation, gifts, a photo booth and of course a few drinks. Congrats to Matt and Gina, may both of you cherish every moment of every day that you spend with each other and continue to become better friends everyday.

April Snow

After a great Easter Service at Bayside (which I actually went to on Good Friday - don't worry I attended the Good Friday service earlier in the day) I headed to the Bradley Lodge with my parent's and grandma on Saturday. We had a low-key weekend of fixing computers (the Lodge now has a desktop that will stay there and that everyone will be able to use), putting away winter decorations (and re-arranging some blocks on the mantel), playing pinochle (my grandma and I won) and of course skiing for the last time of the season at Bear Valley. My dad and I probably set a personal record with 22 runs for me and 21 runs for him done before 11:30 when it started to snow and we decided to leave (yes we are fair weather skiers when given the option). When the snow started to fall it came down like a blizzard and by the time we left on Monday morning nearly two feet of fresh snow had fallen on the Bradley Lodge leaving the trees and ground with a beautiful blanket of snow (check out the bird house as it slowly got covered with snow over about 12 hours).

On Tuesday night as I was heading out to the first ever Placer Business TweetUp at Piati's in Roseville (basically a networking/mixer event) I saw on Facebook that a friend wanted to go skiing on Wednesday, so we decided to use our free passes (mine from Christmas and his from a client) at Sugar Bowl. We enjoyed great spring skiing conditions, amazing views of Donner Lake and got to catch up on life since we rarely see each other. While driving back to my friend's house in Loomis I also spotted "Mater" from the movie Cars, one of my oldest nephew's favorite movies and had to take lots of pictures for him.

Overall a great, but very busy last few days for me, preparations for the Swim for Life event for Safely Out are going very well and I am already starting to book some interviews on local television and radio stations to publicize the event. In addition to the Swim for Life event I am also helping to get members from each of the propositions to be part of a debate that will be posted on the Citizen Voice Web site, similar to this one, and most importantly I have had some great interviews and exchanges with a few key companies as I continue my job search.