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nonprofit marketing

BUZZ Watch Party stars Angels of Assisi 900 506 Michael Hemphill

BUZZ Watch Party stars Angels of Assisi

Join us at the historic Grandin Theatre on Nov. 19 at 6:00 pm ET to celebrate our newest BUZZ starring Angels of Assisi! Event is free. Doors open 5:30 pm.

Founded in 2001 as just a mobile clinic, the animal welfare nonprofit Angels of Assisi in 2025 moved into a new multimillion dollar facility in downtown Roanoke to better serve pets … and the humans who love them! Along with an adoption center and farm sanctuary, Angels of Assisi offers a community pet clinic, rural veterinary care, cruelty investigations, disaster response, and a safety net program for those needing temporary help due to domestic violence or emergency situations.

Rather than deservedly resting on their hind legs, Angels of Assisi seeks to continue its pawsitive momentum by fetching more community support. BUZZ retrieves our good friends from Wordsprint to provide pro bone-o marketing resources that are sure to be the cat’s meow.

BUZZ Watch Party stars Angels of Assisi

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Contact Michael Hemphill for more information by email or 540.556.2879.

BUZZ stars Elimisha Kakuma 900 506 Michael Hemphill

BUZZ stars Elimisha Kakuma

Join us at the historic Lyric Theatre in Blacksburg, Va., for a sneak peek at our newest BUZZ starring Elimisha Kakuma followed by a panel discussion with the leaders of this inspiring nonprofit!

The first 100 people to arrive will receive a ticket for a free small drink and popcorn combo (a $6 value).

Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp was established in 1992 with the arrival of the “Lost Boys of Sudan,” who were fleeing civil war. What was meant to be a temporary refuge has become a permanent settlement of over 300,000 refugees. In Kakuma, education offers children an escape from a difficult reality. But more importantly, a decent education creates a pathway to opportunities for children and their families. However, as students get older, access to higher education becomes all but unattainable.

Elimisha (Swahili for “Educating”) Kakuma provides access to higher education – including Virginia Tech – for the camp’s high school graduates. Students receive intensive academic instruction, exam preparation, mentorship with current college students, and guidance through the college application process. As more refugees gain access to higher education, their long-term life outcomes will be improved and their communities will be strengthened.
Episode airs October 29 on Blue Ridge PBS and our YouTube channel!

Our work highlighting and helping Elimisha Kakuma is supported by the Cranwell Family Foundation. 

BUZZ Live! in Birmingham 1024 576 Michael Hemphill

BUZZ Live! in Birmingham
Join our free BUZZ Live! talk show on Sept. 11, 6:00 pm CDT! The event will include hors d’oeuvres and beverages, and an opportunity for the greater Birmingham community to meet and greet the stars in the four new episodes of our television show BUZZ:
  • Children’s Harbor (featuring Lake Martin Voice)
  • Canoe Creek Stables (featuring web designer Tiara Lavender)
  • Iron City Trykes (featuring AMD Creative)
  • Alabama Task Force 1 Search & Rescue K9 Team (featuring 5Points Creative)
Doors open at 5:30 pm. We invite you to bring a box of diapers to donate to our event host, Bundles of Hope Diaper Bank, 1430 Reverend Abraham Woods Jr. Blvd., Birmingham, AL 35203! Please dress comfortably because our program will take place in Bundles of Hope’s Changing Station, which is not climate controlled. During our one-hour show we’ll talk with the leaders of these Alabama nonprofits, and share clips from our upcoming BUZZ episodes that highlight their inspiring missions. These four episodes air Sundays at 2:00 pm CDT starting Sept. 14 on Alabama Public Television. Until then, please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube! Questions: contact BUZZ creator Michael Hemphill by email here.
These episodes were produced in partnership with See-It Productions and Tate Hipps.
Funding comes from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama’s The Caring Foundation, Robert R. Meyer Foundation, and Hoar Construction.
About BUZZ in Birmingham:
Launched in 2020, BUZZ airs on public television in Virginia – and on YouTube – and features the great work that nonprofits do in our communities, and the marketing pros who donate their time and talent to help these life-giving organizations attract more donors, volunteers and clients to their cause. A native of Birmingham, BUZZ creator Michael Hemphill brought his show to his hometown in 2023. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube.
 
Alabama Public Television Broadcast Schedule
  • Sept. 14, 2:00 pm – Children’s Harbor: BUZZ is back in Alabama highlighting and helping four new nonprofits thanks to funding from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama’s The Caring Foundation, Robert R. Meyer Foundation and Hoar Construction!Between countless doctor appointments and hospitalizations, life doesn’t get more stormy for families than when a child suffers a serious illness. Thankfully, Alabama offers them a harbor of hope. Through a fun-filled “Family Center” at Children’s of Alabama in Birmingham and a fully accessible retreat facility at Lake Martin, Children’s Harbor strengthens families of seriously ill children through refuge, respite and resources. Offering Children’s Harbor some new marketing buzz is a Lake Martin icon, John Coley of Lake Martin Voice Realty.
  • Sept. 21, 2:00 pm – Canoe Creek Stables’ Light of the World Adaptive Horsemanship: Grieving the death of her younger brother Kyle, Nicole Tucker vowed to turn her hurt into healing through one of God’s greatest gifts — horses. Through her Canoe Creek Stables in Springville, Nicole and husband Jake started Light of the World Adaptive Horsemanship to offer help and hope to people of all ages and disabilities, from children born with autism and Down syndrome to adults suffering spina bifida and depression. Giving them needed marketing buzz to reach more folks in need — and donors to fund their mission — is web design pro Tiara Lavender.
  • Sept. 28, 2:00 pm – Iron City Trykes: Special needs children as well as wounded veterans are often limited in their ability to be as mobile as their neurotypical friends and family, especially if they want to ride a bike. Formerly Birmingham AMBUCS, the nonprofit Iron City Trykes is dedicated to inspiring mobility and independence through customized therapeutic tricycles. Iron City Trykes started in Birmingham but is increasingly reaching other parts of Alabama including Jasper and Tuscaloosa, and in this episode gets some buzz from iconic weatherman James Spann. Much of their mission is made possible through partner corporation “build days.” Providing more buzz to inspire more corporate volunteers is social media marketing agency AMD Creative.
  • Oct. 5, 2:00 pm – Alabama Task Force 1 K9 Search & Rescue Team: Since the launch of BUZZ in 2020, Virginia marketing agency 5Points Creative has provided the creative “buzz” for a dozen different nonprofits in just as many episodes. Now 5Points Creative’s operations director Dan Bryan is helping one of his passion projects for which he continues to volunteer: Alabama Task Force 1’s K9 Search Team, which offers vital recovery assistance not just in Alabama but for other U.S. disasters such as Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and the Guadalupe River flooding in Texas.
BUZZ Live! stars Blacksburg Refugee Partnership 1024 1024 Michael Hemphill

BUZZ Live! stars Blacksburg Refugee Partnership

Join BUZZ Live! on stage at the historic Lyric Theatre in Blacksburg, Va., or via livestream, as we highlight the inspiring work of Blacksburg Refugee Partnership!

Hosted by BUZZ creator Michael Hemphill, the hourlong show is August 27 at 7:00 pm EDT (doors open 6:30 pm) and is free to attend in person or to watch on our Facebook and YouTube channels. It will later be rebroadcast on Blue Ridge PBS.

About Blacksburg Refugee Partnership: Globally, 26 million people have been forced to flee countries torn apart by war, violence, and tragedy. They’ve had to abandon their homes. So we welcome them to ours, in Blacksburg, Virginia. BRP is an organization run entirely by community volunteers who believe all humans have the right to a safe, peaceful, happy home. We connect displaced families to the resources and ongoing support they need to successfully plant roots here in America.

 

BUZZ stars Raising the Shade 900 506 Michael Hemphill

BUZZ stars Raising the Shade

To conclude our 5th season, BUZZ highlights the Franklin County NAACP’s Raising the Shade community forum on May 31 that shared with hundreds of people from across the Commonwealth the history of the county’s 70 African-American men who fought for the Union during the Civil War.

This event provides a “sneak peek” at our episode – part 3 of our 4-part Raising the Shade series – that airs August 27 at 7:00 pm EDT on Blue Ridge PBS.

Funded by the Mellon Foundation through Virginia Tech’s Monuments Across Appalachian Virginia, Raising the Shade seeks to provide citizens with a fuller history of the Civil War rather than the racist one depicted by a Confederate monument on the Franklin County courthouse lawn.

About the episode:

Monuments are all around us … testaments to people and places of the past. One such monument stands on the courthouse lawn in Franklin County, Virginia, honoring the county’s ancestors who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.

But the nonprofit Franklin County NAACP has begun asking: Why do we honor these forefathers who fought for a cause to keep other forefathers of ours enslaved? What role did the foremothers have in preserving this history? And, if we insist on memorializing one side of the story, can we at least start to pay tribute to the other?

With funding they’ve received from the Mellon Foundation as part of a Virginia Tech led initiative titled “Monuments Across Appalachian Virginia,” these citizens have banded together to form an organization called “Raising the Shade.” Their mission: create new monuments that celebrate the county’s 70 African-American ancestors who fought for the Union during the Civil War in a branch of the Army known as the United States Colored Troops.

This BUZZ Live! is part 3 of a multi-episode project we’re producing in partnership with the Franklin County NAACP.