Jason Angelini Photography Blog » Wedding Photography and Portrait Photography in Tampa

Mom Blogging:

“The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry. The garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of the naked. The shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot. The money you keep locked away is the money of the poor.”  –St. Basil the Great

Wow.  I am so excited to share the amazing results of our canned food drive auction.  I am seriously overwhelmed by the generosity of so many of you.  We have the results of the auction and with the canned food that will be donated by the top 5 bidders we have EIGHT HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE food items to donate to our local food pantry!!!  865!!!  Thank you all so much for sending in your bids and helping a necessary cause.  Families who would have gone hungry will now eat thanks to your giving hearts!

I am happy to announce the top 5 bids who have won a fall-themed mini session on September 25th with a disk of their images:

Andrea bid 67 cans for each of her 3 kids for a total of 201 food items!

Berni bid 100 cans for her two nieces for a total of 200 food items!

Heather bid 100 cans for her two kids for a total of 200 food items!

Denise sent in her bid for her son for 150 food items!

and Kristen sent in her bid for her son for 114 food items!

We have decided to match the top bid and donate 201 food items as well so we will have a total of ONE THOUSAND SIXTY SIX food items to bring to the local pantry!  That is an amazing blessing for so many people and it is such an honor for our family to have some small part in that.  I cannot express how full my heart feels!  1066 food items…WOW.  Thank you to the winners and to everyone who sent in a bid (there were many others who were very close) for your kind hearts and generosity.  I will be contacting the winners via email today so they can choose their time slot for the session on the 25th.

I cannot wait to share the pictures of what 1066 food items looks like before we bring them to the food pantry!  It is going to be amazing!  And of course we’ll blog pictures from the fun fall themed sessions too!

Mom Blogging:

Last fall we had a Feed the Hungry Can Contest and it was a great success!  The winner of the contest donated over 100 food items to be given to our local food pantry!  Many food pantries are having to turn people away because there is a great need but not enough donations.  People worry about where their next meal will come from and parents struggle to find food to feed their children.  The non-perishable food items that we donate to food pantries help provide for people who would otherwise go hungry.

We are once again having our canned food drive but this year it is going to be in the form of an auction.  We’ll have more winners and even more food we can bring to feed the hungry!  On September 25th we will be giving away five mini studio sessions set up with some adorable fall props!  Starting today people can email us with their highest bid for how many non-perishable food items they would donate to win one of these mini sessions along with the disk of images from the session.  The email should be sent to jasonangelini@aol.com with the subject line “Bid for Canned Food Drive.”  This can be for any type of session including engagement, maternity, newborn, babies, kids, or anything else!  However, you must place your bids per child to include more than one child in a session.  For example, a family with two kids who wants to have a family session would place a bid of 50 cans per child.  They would then have to donate 100 cans if they win the auction.

We will be taking bids until midnight on Saturday, September 18th.  We have a minimum bid of 20 food items per child.  The five bids with the highest total number of food items will win one of the sessions with the disk of images.  These top bidders will be announced on September 19th.  Time slots start at 11am and go until 4pm and winners will get to choose their time slot in the order of how many cans they have bid (most cans gets first choice and so on).  Winners will have to bring the number of food items that they have bid to their session on the 25th.  If you do not want to carry all those cans around, we will also accept a gift card to Publix with $1 for every food item you bid.  If you won making a bid of 100 cans, you can bring 100 cans or a gift card to Publix for $100 and we will do the shopping trip to buy the actual food.  This is also an option for people who live out of town but want to win the free session as a gift to someone here.  Make your bid and you can mail in a gift card if you win!  Last year Jamie and Tristan were the winners and donated over 100 food items.  If all 5 of our winners this year bid at least that much we are going to have some very happy people when they go to get their meals from the local food pantry!

These mini sessions are completely free to the winners of the auction and they will even receive the disk of images.  If any prints or other products are ordered from any of these sessions we will donate the profits to Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief charity.  And of course if anyone is unable to make it on September 25th for a session but they still want to donate food items we’d be happy to include those when we bring everything we collect to the local food pantry.

Send in your bids now!  You’ll be helping a terrific cause while getting some awesome images as well!

THE CAN CONTEST HAS ENDED.

We will share the results and announce the winner here on the blog on Friday, October 23rd.

Thank you so much to everyone who participated!!

Mom Blogging:

Every week the boys and I drop off food as a donation to our local food pantry.  Especially with the hard times people have been facing in this economy, the need is great and the supply is often much too low.  We sat down for our family dinner a few nights ago and said our dinner prayer as usual.  We try to talk to our boys often about how blessed we are for all that we have and how we need to help others whenever we can.  At this dinner, we reminded the boys that it was a blessing for us to have the food that was there on the table because there were many people without enough to eat.  Our 4 year old listened, then looked at me and asked how we got our food when others didn’t have any.  I told him that we were blessed to have our business to support our family and put food on the table.  In a moment that filled my heart, he then asked why we didn’t use our business to help to give other people food too.  Through the simplicity of a child’s giving heart (we are so proud of him), we are introducing our Feed the Hungry Can Contest!

For the next four weeks, we are collecting canned food items for our local food pantry.  For every can that you donate, you will receive a .40¢ credit toward any session or product.  The contest ends on Wednesday, October 21st.  At the end of this contest, the person who donates the most cans will receive a free session and a free 8×10 canvas gallery wrap from that session (a value of over $200!).  This can be any type of session:  engagement, boudoir, bridal, trash the dress, maternity, baby, family, or any other type that you choose.

An example of a gallery wrap, though it is a bit larger than an 8×10:

Also, the profit from any print or products ordered from the winning session will be donated to Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity.

If your session is during the month October and you end up winning the contest at the end of the month, we will reimburse you for your session fee and donate all of the profits from any orders you may have placed. And of course you will still get your free canvas gallery wrap from the session.  Otherwise you win a free session and will have until February 1st, 2010 to use your free session.

You can donate your cans by contacting us to arrange a time to drop them off or, if you have a session before the contest ends, by bringing them to your session.  If you do not want to deal with actual cans, you can mail in gift cards for local grocery stores.  Every $1 on a gift card counts as one can and gets you the .40¢ credit.  All cans or gift cards must be received by Wednesday, October 21st, to be counted in the contest.

Of course, if you just want to drop off cans to be donated we would love that as well!  Any of our family members, or any other wedding professionals or vendors who are reading this, bring up your cans too!

Questions about the contest?  Just email us at jasonangelini@aol.com.  We cannot wait to collect TONS of cans and bring them to the food pantry in time for the holidays!  They can certainly use it.  Whether it is one can or one hundred, we can all share our blessings and contribute to help those in our community who are in need.  This is going to be an awesome contest and we are excited to get started!