Today Disney Parks announced an exciting new way to inspire volunteerism in 2010: Give a Day, Get a Disney Day. The program was kicked off with announcements in major cities across the country and Canada today including Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Toronto and Atlanta. The premise is simple: Give a day of volunteer service and in return, you’ll get a free ticket to a Disney theme park at Disneyland Resort or Walt Disney World Resort. There are more pictures and stories about the multiple city events on the brand new Disney Parks Blog at www.disneyparks.com/blog.
I was fortunate to be in Atlanta when the announcement was made today. Dozens of volunteers from around the city gathered at the Butler Street YMCA for a day’s work to clean up the facility. So many wonderful people got down and dirty planting, gardening, painting, building benches, cleaning, and helping any way they could. Disney entertainment teams kept the place jammin’ with music. Colorful Mickey Mouse balloon towers aligned the work areas. A fabulous acapella quartet from Voices of Atlanta rocked the house. And the weather, slightly chilly, but nonetheless spectacular. And of course, a Disney event wouldn’t be complete without a little character – and who better than Goofy and Pluto to lend a helping paw. Er, I mean hand.
Two members of the Walt Disney World Moms Panel also attended, Jennifer and Heather both of the Atlanta area. Heather had her entire family joining in the volunteer activities at the crack of dawn – weeding, painting and planting flowers. They were such an inspiration.
For all the details on how to get in on Disney’s Give a Day Get a Disney Day, go to www.disneyparks.com.
VoluntEars painting artwork for the amphitheater.
Moms Panel Jennifer, Laura and me outside the Butler Street YMCA
Unless you swim in social media circles, you probably aren’t too familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk. But that is soon going to change. Gary is a rising star. In fact, in early September he was featured prominently in the New York Times. He is closing in on a million followers on Twitter - @garyvee. And he’s got 32-thousand fans on his Facebook page. What is he famous for? Wine.
Gary Vaynerchuk makes his living as a wine reviewer. He bucks the traditional wine lingo and puts his tastings in very common everyday language. But he’s also known for his social media marketing skills. It his dedication to social media that turned his life around and made him what he is today. He just signed a book deal (said to be 7-figures) to write 10-books! His first one comes out in mid-October entitled “Crush It”. And in true social media style, he uses Facebook to promote it.
Gary was at Walt Disney World Resort for the opening of the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival. I was fortunate to be able to hear Gary speak on social media. I felt so inspired by his enthusiasm, his humor, his passion for social media. He gets it and sincerely wants to see the rest of the world “get it”. And to put icing on the cake – he’s a super nice guy in person. What you see is what you get with him. He’s awesome.
An enlightening moment was when Gary made the observation that the internet is only 14-years old – “it hasn’t even had sex yet.” Now that’s funny!
Gary also believes that one day Facebook will be your identity, if not already. Facebook has nearly 400 million users and the day is soon coming when everyone will have a Facebook page. He thinks FB will become your new digital wallet.
Social media is all about engaging in conversation with those that are talking about you or with those people whom you have similar interests. The media world is changing rapidly and we’re probably seeing right now the biggest evolution in the media world than ever before. With technology constantly changing and getting better and better, we’re going to soon be a very digital society with applications that can think better for us and think ahead of us.
I learned so much from hearing Gary Vaynerchuk speak. He’s inspiring – he’s contagious. And – he’s funny.
I was involved in an impromptu conversation this week about brand loyalty. Someone brought up Coca Cola and couldn’t understand why that brand has such a huge following. And not just a huge following but very passionate, too. The company has nearly 4-Million fans on Facebook!
Coca Cola has been in my life since childhood. The refreshing soft drink was often used as a reward to say “good job”. If we got good grades in school or did something extraordinary my mom would take my brother and me to McDonald’s to get us a “Coke” and French fries. Or she’d let us have a Coke with our dinner on special occasions. My teachers did it, too. I remember in 4th grade I won a contest in my classroom and the teacher walked me down to the teacher’s lounge and rewarded me with an ice-cold Coca Cola from the soda machine. I was on top of the world. You have to remember, school was much stricter back then – no students were allowed to have any kind of soft drink. Only milk and water were available in the lunchroom. But that day I was lucky enough to have a Coca-Cola.
I also remember saving my pennies and begging my mom to let me and my best friend ride our bikes up to the convenience store to buy a Coke. We were often told no, but when we did get a yes – it was cloud nine for us!
In high school, Coke was in the vending machines. And we drank a lot of it because it was finally available to us without our parent’s permission. Freedom to drink soft drinks. Freedom to have a Coke whenever we wanted. It was all good. Coke was also prominent at all the high school football games. Coca Cola was everywhere in my childhood.
And adding to those memories, how could we ever forget one of the most memorable commercials of our time. Who doesn’t think of Coca Cola whenever they hear “I’d like to teach the world to sing”?
That is why there is such brand loyalty for Coca Cola. I have an emotional connection with Coke. It’s part of my life, part of my history.
Over the years, I’ve drank them all – Coke, Tab, Diet Coke, Coke Zero and overseas – Coke Light.
My refrigerator today may be filled with Diet Dr. Pepper, but my heart is with Coca Cola.
In a few weeks I’ll be walking with my fellow Disney cast members for the Greater Orlando Start! Heart Walk to raise money to fight heart disease.
I have a special place in my heart (no pun intended) for this event as I honor my grandma, who passed away many years ago after suffering from heart disease for as long as I can remember. She died my junior year of high school.
Grandma moved in with our family when I was in elementary school. Her health had declined so much she couldn’t live on her own any longer. By trade she was a seamstress who specialized in draperies, but she would often make many of my play clothes and would even make matching clothes for my Barbie dolls! One of her many other talents was cooking. She was a phenomenal cook who made the best dinners and desserts I can remember. These were true meat-n-potatoe dishes with homemade breads, pop overs, brownies, and cakes. I am thankful to still have many of her recipes which unfortunately rarely gets used these days. It was all simple food, but gosh was it delicious.
Here’s one of the few pictures I have of grandma and me.
If you would like to support me in the American Heart Walk, you can do so by donating through my Heart Walk webpage. The walk is the first weekend in October. It’s only a 5k so I think I can handle that. The American Heart Association raises funds to not only fight heart disease but stroke, too. My mother has already suffered three strokes in the past 9 years and miracously, she recovered from all of them with no long term effects. I know that times are tough right now and there are many charities in need of money. I am grateful for anything you can do.
I needed to check out some of the newest merchandise in the Disney shops to find some gifts for later in the year. So today I stopped in at the Emporium on Main Street at the Magic Kingdom. I have such fond memories of that store and it’s no surprise, I’ve been going there since 1971!
While browsing and meandering through the store, I found the absolutely most fun beach towel. It’s just so colorful yet simple and not in your face Mickey. I like that sometimes. It retails for $18.95. I checked Disney Shopping online to see if it might be there, but it wasn’t. I guessing it’s only available on property.
With my pool I use beach towels all the time. I think this one just might be a fine addition to my collection.
Also… I stopped at the cast discount store on my way home just to see what they had in stock. I go there maybe once a year just to check it out. It’s a store where they sell out-dated merchandise or overstocked merchandise to the cast members at a discount price. It’s not a big secret or hush-hush. Cast members can bring family or friends every once in awhile to shop there, too. Today I got the greatest deal ever on something I’ll probably never use or need. But once you see it, you’ll understand why I had to have it.
Isn’t that great! It’s a New Year’s Eve Mickey ears hat from last year. And the best part is – it was under $1.00 AND because it’s my birthday month I got an additional percentage off that price. So, I practically got it for free. How fun!
A friend sent me this video for my birthday, knowing I love animals and that I have a German Shepherd, too. It’s hysterical! And the dog looks just like my Mikita. Enjoy…
I have an unofficial tradition I impose on myself every birthday weekend. It’s been more of a tradition in the past decade or so, but I honor it nonetheless and it involves self indulgence and total “me” time. I shop. I shop all day. I go to stores I may not visit for another year and just have a dang good time browsing, trying on clothes, shoes, looking at curtains, dreaming of what could be, and just absolutely having a blast – by myself. This kind of shopping is not something I can do successfully with anyone else. Guys will get frustrated with all the girly stores and frankly, I don’t want the peer pressure of someone else (male or female) making me feel guilty if I really want to buy something I absolutely don’t need.
The coolest thing I got and probably the most fiscally responsible (read cheapest) was this napkin holder. I know! A napkin holder! But just look at how cool it is. It’s from Ikea. The napkins (also from Ikea) lay on top of a black plate and there’s a weighted arm that holds them in place. I love it! (P.S. Hey, did you notice the awesome photo in the background?)
The biggest purchase of the day was my 4 new pairs of shoes. Yes – 4 pairs! For you shoe-nistas I am so going to disappoint you. I buy frugally and purchase based on 1) comfort 2) usability 3) need and lastly 4) fashion. Don’t come here expecting to see me in Jimmy Choos – it ain’t gonna happen.
But I am excited about these pretty shoes:
The photo doesn’t do them justice. They’re really dark black suede pumps and look amazing on my feet. I got some really fun shoes today between DSW and Off Broadway.
Back to cool stuff – I also got a pretty new duvet from Ikea. It’s really lovely in person.
One last note, nothing to do with shopping. The other exciting thing that happened this weekend was Mikita jumping into the pool all by herself, no pushing by me or Mike. Last year she learned to swim.. this year she’s learning to jump in alone. Yea for Mikita!
I wanted a dinette set for my breakfast nook in the kitchen. I kinda knew what I wanted – a tall-boy set with comfortable chairs. For weeks I had been scouring the circular ads in the paper hoping something would catch my eye and also give me an idea of what items like that are costing these days.
About two weeks ago I started the search in the stores. And lo and behold, I found “exactly” what I wanted at badcock Furniture, the first store I went to. The sales lady told me I was “in luck” because the 5-piece set was on sale for $659 marked down from $800. Eeeek.. it was a little more than I had expected but it was so exactly what I wanted. What to do? Thankfully, the smart economical side of me took over and I walked out knowing I needed to check out more stores for other deals. But – it was just what I was looking for!
Over the next few days I hit more stores like Pier 1, Rooms To Go, American Signature and even tried Bed Bath and Beyond. None of them had anything close to the perfect set I saw at Badcock. Ugh - I so didn’t want to spend that much money.
On a whim, I stopped at one more store to see if there was anything else that would work. I visited Kanes Furniture. The salesman, Guido, led me around the store showing me all their dinette sets. They also had one that was really pretty but too big for the nook area. As we went upstairs to see the final sets he said, “I’ve only got one more to show you.” And wouldn’t you know – it was the identical set that was selling at Badcock. Same manufacturer, same name. Only $160 cheaper for all 5 pieces! How about that!! I found my perfect set at another store at a much better price.
Ok, it actually doesn’t “pay” but it definitely saved me some dollars to shop around.
Hello and welcome to Leanne's Life! Before anything else - please know that this is my own personal blog and is in no way affiliated with my employer or any other company.
Now a little bit about me: I'm a native of Central Florida and work at Walt Disney World Resort. (And yes, it's a dream job!) Prior to my magical days at Disney I spent nearly 10 years at WFTV Ch-9 in Orlando. I'm a graduate of Rollins College. I love animals so you'll probably see quite a few stories here about my babies, Mikita and Jefferson.
I hope you'll enjoy my posts. Topics will be wide ranging from amusing stories about daily life to the excitement about something that happened at work, or maybe just my random (and sometimes silly) thoughts on something. Who knows!?
Thanks for visiting and please comment so I know what you're thinking.
Two members of the Walt Disney World Moms Panel also attended, Jennifer and Heather both of the Atlanta area. Heather had her entire family joining in the volunteer activities at the crack of dawn – weeding, painting and planting flowers. They were such an inspiration.
Coca Cola has been in my life since childhood. The refreshing soft drink was often used as a reward to say “good job”. If we got good grades in school or did something extraordinary my mom would take my brother and me to McDonald’s to get us a “Coke” and French fries. Or she’d let us have a Coke with our dinner on special occasions. My teachers did it, too. I remember in 4th grade I won a contest in my classroom and the teacher walked me down to the teacher’s lounge and rewarded me with an ice-cold Coca Cola from the soda machine. I was on top of the world. You have to remember, school was much stricter back then – no students were allowed to have any kind of soft drink. Only milk and water were available in the lunchroom. But that day I was lucky enough to have a Coca-Cola.
Here’s one of the few pictures I have of grandma and me. 
