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This column explores the lives of people who make the time to give back in the community.Since June of 2007, Erik Berlin (a.k.a Chef Egg ) has served as a conduit between the Whole Foods Market and the community, teaching healthy food habits to the greater Silver Spring area. When Chef Egg, a self-proclaimed "paid volunteer" is not out in the community demonstrating how to make a healthy smoothie with kale (yes kale!) or showing seniors how to shop for healthy foods, you can find him in the Whole Foods Market in downtown Silver Spring. Patch: What is your mission as “Chef Egg”? Chef Egg: I don’t know if it’s really a mission, but my goal is to take as many healthy eating …
Three nights a month, Dorothy Michael and Silver Spring resident, Adeline Manohar, prepare and supply hot meals at Shepherd’s Table, a nonprofit serving the homeless and those in need since 1983. However, these women contribute more than time. Last year's Thanksgiving meal was short 10 turkeys, so Michael and Manohar reached out to friends and family through Facebook and e-mail and raised $1000, which was $700 more than needed to save Thanksgiving. With the rest of the money, they pooled their resources and successfully managed a backpack stuffing assembly line. On Christmas Day, many …
If you've ever stopped in ArtSpring community art store downtown, you may have met artist Annette Florin, who volunteers there every week. What you may not know is that she's also one of the self-described "crazy creative chicks," who founded the store. Florin calls herself a New York City transplant, born and raised in Brooklyn, and the mother of two "amazingly fantastic" teenage boys. The family moved to Silver Spring in 2003 when her husband, a doctor of entomology with the Navy, was transferred to the area. It was the latest of many such moves around the country, but once landing in …
Since June of 2010, Barbara Garlock has served as Interfaith Works’ Executive Director, but has been with the community assistance organization since 2005. Patch sat down with Garlock to find out a bit about her passion for community service and how the industry is changing for the better. Patch: Your background is based in the retail sector, how did you get involved with the non-profit world? Barbara Garlock: I was in a management consultant in different sectors for a number of years. When I moved to the Washington, DC area, a friend asked me to join the board of a non-profit hospice, …
You've heard it before. To be successful in business, you must become a web superstar. All you need to do is have a website and a Facebook presence and tweet every once in a while. Think again, said Shala Graham, web instructor for the Maryland Capital Region Small Business Development Center and principal of SW Creatives, a Silver Spring-based communications design firm. Having a presence is not enough to get the most out of your site, Graham said. You need to do something with it. With a little elbow grease, Graham took her site to the top of Google search results in two weeks with a few …
