Attached is an Open Letter from Amy Deacon, the Managing Partner of the Longhorn Restaurant, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Amy and her team raised $5,000 for the Rotary District 6290 (Thirsting to Serve) fundraising effort to provide 1,000 HydrAid BioSand Water Filters for the people of Haiti.
On behalf of Thirsting to Serve we offer our thanks to Amy and her wonderful team at her Longhorn Restaurant in Tulsa.
Jim Bodenner
________________________________________
Open Letter From Amy Deacon:
The earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010 impacted the Tulsa Longhorn on a personal level. One of our team members grew up in Haiti and both his and his wife’s entire family reside 5 miles outside of Porte of Prince. It was agonizing for the team to watch Eddi’s pain of not knowing the well being of his family. As excruciating as it was for us, none of us could fully understand the depths it tormented Eddie and his wife.
Within days of the earthquake, I received an email from a fellow Longhorn manger with a challenge from his parents who are involved with “Thirsting to Serve”; a non-profit organization that provides water filters to third world countries. The need for safe drinking water is so great in Haiti that the requests for their filters far exceeded the available funds of this organization. The challenge was for friends and family to consider purchasing a filter, or finding a way to help raise money to help with this great need.
My entire team approached me about doing something for not only Eddie’s family but for his country. I shared the email and operation “Hotcakes for Haiti” was quickly under way, our goal $2000. Our humble efforts were simply a $5 “All-you-can-eat” pancake breakfast and silent auction.
We started promoting the event with our guests, contacts and business connections. We not only invited them out to breakfast but mentioned that we were having a silent auction in efforts to multiply our funds. The community involvement became emotionally overwhelming.
On February 27th at 7:00 am we opened our doors, pancake mix ready and fingers crossed. Almost the entire staff was on hand, along with the “Ice Girls” from the Tulsa Oilier’s Hockey Team who came to wait tables, Jim and Sue Bodenner, representatives of Thirsting to Serve and the ones who sent out the email challenge, as well as surprise attendee Mike Bodenner, Managing Partner, from the Longhorn Restaurant in Norridge, Illinois.
I don’t think there is a word in the English language that describes how emotional and moving this event was. There are many great stories to come out of that day, however the most touching happened when we pulled Eddie out of the kitchen and showed him all the tables full of happy people, the ones checking out the silent auction items and the ones waiting in the lobby. Extremely moved by the crowd he asked “Who are these people? Where did they come from?” I tearfully replied “Eddie, these are your guests that you cook steaks for on a daily basis. They came here to support you and your country. Your Longhorn family worked very hard promoting this event.” He felt blessed by his team’s efforts to bring his country safe drinking water. He mentioned “My people that survived the earthquake are now dying a slow death due to the polluted water; this means a lot to me.” I will just say Kleenexes were in short supply that day.
I am very proud to say that we raised just under $5,000 that day, which will provide safe drinking water to 750 people every day for the next ten years. The Silent Auction brought in over $1,700 alone. The donations that came in from not only our local businesses but our regular guests were unbelievably generous. Eddie is completely unaware that the team is giving a portion of the funds to his family to help them rebuild. On Wednesday, the majority of my staff will be on hand as we surprise Eddie and present him with this gift along with the Darden Dimes match.
The US Navy will be picking up the filters we purchased and at no cost will safely deliver them into the hands of the correct people in Haiti to ensure that the Haitian people will receive the filters as intended.
I just wanted to share you with you the heart of my team, and their desire to live our core values not only in our community, but in one far away.
Blessed beyond measure,
~Amy Deacon
Managing Partner
Team Tulsa
No comments:
Post a Comment