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Michael Hemphill

Episode 21 features Brain Injury Services of Southwest Virginia 900 507 Michael Hemphill

Episode 21 features Brain Injury Services of Southwest Virginia

As originally broadcast June 29, 2022, on Blue Ridge PBS …

In 1997, 10-year-old Jason Rooker accidentally hung himself while playing in his front yard. The brain injury he suffered would eventually take his life … and inspire his parents to found a nonprofit to help other New River Valley families struggling with such tragedies: Brain Injury Services of Southwest Virginia.

But over the years BISSWVA has grown beyond the NRV to provide resources to 11,000 square miles of Virginia, from Martinsville and Lynchburg to Alleghany and Lee County. And the unwieldiness of the name can be a mouthful to say and difficult for clients to remember.

In this episode, we feature the emotional stories of individuals and families whose lives have been challenged by brain injury.

And we are thrilled to welcome back to BUZZ marketing specialist Wordsprint, which helped rebrand Mill Mountain Zoo and Eastmont Community Foundation in previous episodes.

We thank these individuals and businesses for providing the sponsorship support for this episode:

Buzz4Good Radio Hour talks Gun Control Nonprofits 1024 617 Michael Hemphill

Buzz4Good Radio Hour talks Gun Control Nonprofits

As a professor in Norris Hall, Catherine Koebel’s father would have been a victim of Virginia Tech’s 2007 mass shooting had his class started an hour earlier. Brenda Hale wasn’t as lucky: when she was a little girl, her father fatally shot her mother.

Listen to Buzz4Good

Now both have teamed up to launch an aspiring nonprofit – Groceries Not Guns – that seeks to stem this cycle of death one household at a time. Groceries Not Guns, along with the Roanoke chapter of the NAACP and Roanoke Quaker Meeting, is coordinating a buyback on June 25.  

While mass shootings like the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas receive a lot of media attention, they comprise just a fraction of the 45,000+ gun deaths – suicides, inner city homicides and accidental shootings – occurring each year in our country.

Such killings are just part of living in the United States.

Listen to BUZZ creator Michael Hemphill‘s conversation with the leaders of these organizations.

Also in this episode … a sneak peek at an upcoming BUZZ TV show episode featuring Brain Injury Services of Southwest Virginia.

Are you a nonprofit with an event that we could help promote? Or a marketing problem we could help fix? Contact us and we’ll share on an upcoming episode.

Watch Party June 8 for GIVE Roanoke episode of BUZZ 900 506 Michael Hemphill

Watch Party June 8 for GIVE Roanoke episode of BUZZ

Watch Party on June 28

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As originally broadcast May 18, 2022, on Blue Ridge PBS …

Free HIV testing, delivering food and comfort to Covid-positive homeless individuals, coordinating the statewide 211 Virginia call center, founding Total Action for Progress, RADAR, and the Community Foundation Serving Western Virginia — these are just a few of the programs that the Council of Community Services has provided over the last 60 years. 

In April 2022, CCS embarked on its newest venture by hosting “GIVE Roanoke,” a day of philanthropic giving for more than 100 nonprofits throughout the Roanoke Valley. BUZZ invited Freedom First and Lamar Advertising to provide some needed, well, buzz for the 24-hour online event, which ended up raising more than $300,000. 

BUZZ and CCS invites the community to attend our free Watch Party on June 8 at 6 pm at the Grandin Theatre where GIVE Roanoke prizes will be awarded.

BUZZ Episode 19 features Tudor House & Virginia Children’s Theatre 900 567 Michael Hemphill

BUZZ Episode 19 features Tudor House & Virginia Children’s Theatre

“It was the most pain you can imagine.”

Virginia Children’s Theatre is famous for its family-friendly, crowd-pleasing productions along the lines of “Peter Pan” and “Wizard of Oz.”

But once each year, the theatre devotes itself to weightier, painful topics affecting adolescents through its program VCT4Teens.

In 2021 and 2022, VCT has done so in partnership with Tudor House, a nonprofit founded amid the most painful experience imaginable.

Helping Tudor House share its story — and resources — is AAF Roanoke member Nero Digital Design Studio.

BUZZ Watch Party featuring Virginia Children’s Theatre & Tudor House 1024 576 Michael Hemphill

BUZZ Watch Party featuring Virginia Children’s Theatre & Tudor House

Join us for a free special evening Wednesday, April 13, 6:00-8:00 pm at Grandin Theatre, that features the inspiring collaboration between two vital Roanoke Valley nonprofits: Virginia Children’s Theatre and Tudor House. (Register below.)

In summer 2020, Roanoke business and swimming icon Louis Tudor died by suicide. Out of the tragedy, Tudor House was born, a nonprofit that provides resources for individuals suffering from depression and mental illness. 

In 2022, Tudor House and Virginia Children’s Theatre partnered to present “Apologies: A play about teenage suicide” to families throughout the Roanoke Valley. 

Providing the pro bono marketing “buzz” for this show: Nero Digital Design.

  • 6:00 pm – Doors open (beer, wine, soft drinks and concessions available for purchase)
  • 6:30 pm – Performances by Virginia Children’s Theatre
  • 7:00 pm – Blue Ridge PBS premier of our new episode
  • 7:30 pm – Q&A with Tudor House

We thank Tudor’s Biscuit World, Mrs. Ruth Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Fulton C. Johnson, City of Roanoke (through American Rescue Plan funding) and Freedom First Credit Union for sponsoring this episode!

Watch Party on June 28

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