Rise Up! For Kids is a Johnson City based program centered on inspiring, influencing, and impacting kids to one day attain post high school education through mentoring, small groups and after school programs.  In the near future, they hope to help 100 first generation college students go to school.  In 2020, it is their vision to see 500 children complete their program all through their school years and then go on to graduate from college.

Tax Department member Ryan Bowman is pictured below with School Board member Jenny Brock and 5th grade students from Northside Elememtary School.  Northside is a Title I school, which means most of the children come from homes with very limited resources.  Northside tries to find opportunities for the kids to do new and different things they normally would not be able to do.  At Pine Oaks Golf Course, there were volunteers on hand to show the kids how to play golf, different techniques, and score keeping.

By Crystal Mitchell:

The area nursing home week was a success and will continue in Kingsport at a later date.  Mary and Jeanne took over boxes of supplies to the VA on Monday for residents and short term care patients.  Several BCS employees traveled to Lakebridge Health Care Center on Wednesday.  We took pink cupcakes and pink lemonade to help kick off their cancer awareness month of October and bingo prizes for them to hand out.  Latosha Luther helped us get organized and arrange the visit.  What a sweet and caring person.  You could tell she likes what she’s doing and has a great touch with the residents.  We traveled to Christian Care in JC on Thursday to take birthday cake and ice cream for the September birthdays.  We also took gift bags for each resident at the party.  Doris Rogers helped get this organized and arrange the visit.  What a woman that loves her job and fits it absolutely perfectly.  Thank you so much to everyone who donated, shopped, delivered, traveled, baked, served, played the piano, sang, purchased, and brought items for this event.  Thank you to Latosha and Doris.  We really enjoyed the visits with you and meeting the ladies and gentlemen and some of their family members.

From Kathy Owens:

Strength for the Journey – something we all need on the journey of life.  Here at BCS we are blessed with many friends and family.  Others in our community are not so fortunate.  Recently, the admin staff prepared gift bags for men and women attending a special week at Buffalo Mountain Methodist Retreat Center.  The mission of Strength for the Journey is to provide a safe, caring and healing community for women and men living with HIV/AIDS by offering an opportunity for spiritual and emotional growth in a supportive and nurturing environment.    We didn’t know the mission statement at the time, but as a group, we wanted to make a difference in these lives.  So the idea of individual gift bags for the campers came about.   Each bag was filled with items such as a Bible, note paper, water bottle, stress ball, body wash, shampoo, playing cards, homemade cookies and personal notes written to the campers.  Along with the goodie bags, Correne gave an hour class on couponing!  What a wonderful response from all involved with the retreat.  They were so appreciative of the gifts and had a great time at the class.   Each of us were blessed by participating in this outreach.