The 42nd Annual Pink Tea Concert featuring Alice Day, Internationally Renowned Jazz Vocalist and Miami Born Star

THE CHURCH OF THE OPEN DOOR (UCC)

TO HOLD

42^ND ANNUAL PINK TEA CONCERT

FEATURING WORLD RENOWNED JAZZ ARTIST

ALICE DAY

Jazz Great Alice Day will perform many of her international jazz hits!

WHO: The Church of the Open Door (UCC) and Jazz Artist Alice Day.

WHAT: The Church of the Open Door (UCC) in Miami will hold its 42^nd Annual Pink Tea Concert with jazz artist Alice Day as headliner. The Pink Tea Concert is The Church of the Open Door’s annual fundraiser. All donations generated by the concert will benefit the church mission and wider church ministries supporting the local community, disaster relief, children, hunger, and homeless ministries.

WHEN: Sunday, May 16, 2010, at 4:00 p.m.

WHERE: The Church of the Open Door 6001 NW 8^th Avenue Miami FL, 33127

WHY: Brenda Wilson, President of Circle 1 of the Women’s Fellowship, Church of the Open Door Miami said “We are thrilled to continue our legacy of magnificent entertainment at our Pink Tea Concert with world renowned Alice Day as our guest artist. We expect this to be a fabulous event!”

The Church of the Open Door Congregational, United Church of Christ (UCC) is a steady growth church in Miami, Florida. Our church has a rich legacy and history beginning in May 1958 and spanning over fifty years. As we journey through the next fifty years we aim to continue to grow in membership, faith, and community outreach. The Church of the Open Door objective is to bind together followers of Jesus Christ for the purpose of sharing in the worship of God and making His will dominate in the lives of people, individually and collectively, especially as that will is set forth in the life, teachings, death, resurrection, and the living presence of Jesus Christ. Our vision statement, adopted in June 2003, proclaims that We shall be a Holy Spirit filled Church, obeying the Word of God, serving and advancing the purity, power and passion of Jesus Christ, while capturing and empowering God's Community. Our mission is to holistically empower the members of our Church and our Community, while serving as an Oasis of Resources for those who are in a Desert of Need. For additional information go to:

http://churchoftheopendoormiami.org/

Can anything good come out of Liberty City?

Someone well versed in NYC real estate once told me that you could tell a neighborhood was gentrifying when the liquor stores and chicken shacks were replaced with fruit and vegetable stands and coffee shops. I didn't believe it until the local fried fish/seafood restaurant on Broadway near Kosciusko in Bed Sty was transformed into a fruit and veggie stand as more and more Caucasians stood shoulder to shoulder with me on the train to commute to work.

I was reminded of this today in a conversation about why District 5, which encompasses Liberty City, Little Haiti, Wynwood, and Overtown is so desolate. I don't live anywhere near that area. In fact, I live over 100 blocks away. I'm so far North in Miami I could walk across the county line into Broward within minutes. However, anywhere black and brown people reside sparks an interest in me.

We have to do more than offer lip service. It's high time someone gets up and makes the changes that are so desperately needed in District 5. In an area that's been littered with false promises, allegations of shady doings, court proceedings, arrests and the like, it's almost like a complacency has settled over District 5.

I am proof positive that out of heartbreak and pain can come positivity. Who would have thought that the little girl born to a teen mom in a lower middle class neighborhood in NYC would go on to do some of the things that I have done? Be the places that I have been? Work for the places I have worked? Have the dreams that I hope to realize? We need to foster that same hope in the generations behind us. It sounds so trite- but that No Child Left Behind slogan rings true- "We must lift as we climb to leave no child behind."

That also involves not becoming successful and running away from "the hood" into Broward County because we're so "above it all". Stay and help make some of those much needed changes. Convert the liquor and number running shack into that healthy fruit stand that sells snacks to the kids that will do the body good. Build a community garden in the vacant lot on the corner. Patronize black businesses- and if you ARE a black business offer something that seems to lack in our shops- GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE. No, that's not an exception. It's basically the rule. There also needs to be some real revitalization, which means job creation. It's great that Walgreens and Jackson Hewitt have a thriving business, but what about health clinics? Book stores? A Whole Foods? A movie theater? A bistro? What about a good old fashioned jazz cafe? I'm just throwing some things out there. Don't say it can't happen. I'll point you no further than downtown Brooklyn, New York for evidence that it most certainly CAN happen.

I could go on for hours, but I'll close this by saying change is coming to District 5. I plan to put all my support behind it because I for one want politicians to put up or shut up. LIVES depend on it.

All I do is win, win, win no matter what!

Well, not really. But you're never too old for make believe. :)

I took a great social media course by Manny Sarmiento. To say that he's a guru would be an understatement. People, if you're looking to learn the nuts and bolts of this new world of marketing please track Manny down and sign up for one of his courses. If you think that you're on the cusp of social media simply because you have a facebook fan page and twitter page you are wrong! There's so much more to it.

For example, I was breezing through Facebook today and a friend of mine had yet another annoying sales pitch urging readers to call her 800 number to get into some MLM program she's in. She probably thinks she'll grow her business that way, and that's usually how people pitch their products. But honestly, would YOU call her 800 number when hit with a daily barrage of messages selling you something? No? Then don't do it to other people. There's a trick to lure in buyers but that aint it. Manny will tell you how it's done. To that end, this blog, and my church's blog will be updated more regularly. So no more months between posts. You'll get something fresh out the oven at least twice a week.

I can go on and on about Manny's courses (which will be offered as a full fledged certification program at Millennia Atlantic University soon). But what I really want to say is that I have so much I want to accomplish in 2010 and the year is half way out. Right now I'm working on completing the mba primer so I can attend graduate school. I just started a new job about 3 months ago. I am the Communications and PR manager for a large South Florida non-profit. That job keeps me plenty busy, along with my side business which is a fledgling media company that does film/photography/web. My 18 year old is weeks from graduating High School, so there's senior prom, her cotillion, and graduation coming up. I'm in the process of moving into a new house. My husband just had knee surgery. I am super busy on committees at my church- oh yeah, so stay tuned for tomorrows blog. We have a historic event coming up that I want half of Miami to attend!

My life is just so full. So if you look back at my old blog posts where my life was pretty sparse and fastfoward a few years to what's going on now... night and day. I thank GOD for all his blessings! God has definitely been working in my life so I will always give him all the praise, honor and glory! Amen!

Post Turkey/Black Fri Day Check In

I absolutely have not forgotten about my readers, as dwindling as that number may have become. I guess I neglect this page for the same reason I can't get into twitter. Though I love to write, I just can't do it on command like that. And if I have nothing to say, I don't write. So much has happened since my last post and I would love to share it with the world- or at least the faithful readers that remain. I'll play with the privacy settings to go in about a few things that I don't want to necessarily be public right now. What I can share with the world is that I am almost finished with a portfolio that encompasses ALL my work. At first I had one that was strictly photographic in nature but since who I am is so much more than a photog I decided to pull together the whole kit and kaboodle. I'll post it here when it's done.

How have you all been? Feel free to bang back: escapebrooklyn[at]gmail.com . Besitos.

Good Customer Service is NOT optional!

In a time where we need to stretch a dollar that's lost all it's elasticity, great customer service is the order of the day. Point blank, if you are giving lousy customer service, you need to shutter your doors because people aren't making much money, and for sure they will NOT be forking it over to you when your attitude and goods are crappy.

Case in point, LIMOS OF MIAMI. I just filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau due to shady business dealings, unprofessionalism and a few other issues surrounding my wedding day. Oh and by the way, aside from LIMOS OF MIAMI our day was super amazing, beautiful, elegant, romantic and just downright INCREDIBLE. I have 500+ pics taken by family and friends, but I want to wait for the professional ones to come in before I create a slide show. Hopefully I'll have something to put up within a month.

But back to LIMOS OF MIAMI. Here is the complaint I filed with BBB. I'll wait to hear from them to see if we can forge an amicable solution to this situation. To date I've only posted this complaint here, and on a BBB affiliate website. But the internet reaches far and wide and there are PLENTY of other places that I'm poised to post this review. So LIMOS OF MIAMI, do the right thing. Admit your driver was unprofessional, tacky and out of order. Utilize excellent customer service skills and ask me, the customer, if there is anything you can do to resolve the situation. If not, expect your prom season calendar to be wide open. You WILL NOT do business in our communities if you don't respect us and our buying power!

Without further adeiu, here is my review on LIMOS OF MIAMI:

My wedding was on Saturday 9/19/09. The driver was to pick us up in a stretch Hummer at 6PM. He arrived at 637PM, long after most of the guests had left, thus defeating the purpose of us having a high profile vehicle. The driver did have the red carpet, as promised, but no disco ball, no complimentary champagne, no water or anything but hot club soda to drink. When I asked him about the drinks he told me it wasn't included in the package. I passed my blackberry up to the front for him to review the e-mail I pulled up between myself and one of their employees when we were working out the details of the day. The driver scanned the e-mail, and dismissed my request stating that the drinks came with a hourly rate package, not a transport. Nowhere in the chain of e-mail communique with their company did they specify a difference between the hourly rate and a transport. I told the driver this fact. He put the car in park on a busy Miami street, jumped out, opened up my door and confronted me in front of my entire wedding party. When I tried to diffuse the situation by telling him to forget it, and just to drive on, he demanded that I, the bride, produce a credit card for him to take an imprint of and sign it immediately or he would throw my wedding party out onto the street. He assumed that I would try to stop payment on the account, which was the furthest thing from my mind at the time. I asked was he serious, and he said "very". I didn't even think I had a credit card on me at first because what bride walks around with a wallet on her wedding day? Thankfully, one of my bridesmaids had removed my purse from my vehicle and brought it along in the limo with us so I had a card to give the driver. Humiliated, I signed the bill so we could stop the embarrassing display. He had second thoughts about what he did because after dropping us off at the reception site he tried to apologize. I didn't want to talk to him at that point but I e-mailed the company one week after returning from my honeymoon to find out why he did what he did. To date my e-mail has gone unanswered so it's safe to assume they take no issue with the unprofessional behavior of their driver and condone his actions.