Celebratemagazine's Weblog

Welcome Friend

stormisworld — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:54:48 +0000

CELEBRATE MAGAZINE, Inc. began as a dream by Stormi Willis

stormisworld — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:30:58 +0000

CELEBRATE MAGAZINE, Inc. began as a dream in the minds of three different women from three different worlds. Three Christian women, possessing business planning, accounting, purchasing, sales, graphics layout & design, modeling, and writing experience. Together they created a plan, and by Winter 2006,CELEBRATE MAGAZINE will be a reality. We would like this quarterly magazine to grow into a monthly publication. When asked what the magazine is about, I tell people that it is about women, for women, and for anyone who knows a woman. The goal of this magazine is to offer women a true Christian perspective to being a wife, a mother, and a woman. To give inspiration in simply being what we were created for. We want women to know that being beautiful doesn’t have to be just skin deep. Being beautiful is so much more than in how you look on the outside. True beauty comes from who you are on the inside. We have a consuming vision to help women in their homes, churches, and businesses to create a great first impression and lasting image in the minds of the people they meet and more importantly in the hearts and souls of those who they love and share their lives with.Our desire is to bring confidence, beauty, and fun into the everyday lives of women everywhere and to spread the word that the most valuable and beautiful jewels are free for the asking. God gave us this company and if our all powerful Lord and Savior places you somewhere, He will make a way for you to succeed. We would like for you to share in the inevitable success of CELEBRATE MAGAZINE, because no matter who you are, YOU ARE WORTH CELEBRATING!Stormi L. WillisCreative Director, Celebrate Magazine, Inc.

Celebrate Magazine, Inc. – A Dream Becomes A Reality by Sandra Reynolds

stormisworld — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:28:34 +0000

Celebrate Magazine started as an idea, as does most things that someone dreams about doing. My sister, Juanita Thornton, and I always wanted to start a catalogue business. Believe it or not it was about 30 years ago. Well you know what they say about good intentions. Raising a family, jobs, the usual stuff just kept getting in the way. Then came a time in my life when I met a wonderful man and decided to give marriage one more try. He lived an hour away from my employment, where I worked as an NICU nurse for many, many years. The drive was beginning to get to me. I discussed it with my new husband and we decided that I should take early retirement. So I did. But of course retirement was not in either of our vocabularies. So we ventured into real estate, which was a lot of fun. Soon though it became a lot of hard work, not that we were afraid of hard work. It is called old joints, aching back (that sort of thing). So now we just buy land. You do not have to clean, paint, or replace rotten wood. But that also freed up a lot of time that we had spent working on houses. I began to feel restless, wondering what I should do with the newfound time on my hands. My sister called me one day and asked if I would like to start an Internet business. And, as usual, I said yes and jumped in with both feet. There was talk of our old dream of starting a catalog business and future plans of creating a magazine. But for starters, we decided to create a Women’s Jewelry and Accessories web site. (Just in case you are interested in taking a peek, you will find us at www.2SistersBoutique.com) Hope to see you there! Now that was hard work. I thought I knew about computers, but putting together a web site and making it look like my grandkids did not do it was another thing. After a weeks of very hard work and a few phone calls for technical support it was up and running. During this time, I had met a very nice young woman, Stormi Willis, and had told her that I was going to start an Internet business, but oddly enough, we had never discussed what type of Internet business I had started. When I saw her next she asked me how it was going? I started telling her about all my trials and tribulations and then she told me about how she could help Juanita and I. She also told me that her desire was to take her gift of writing and combine that with what she had learned throughout her life and to create a magazine that would help people in their lives by telling them of how the Lord can save and help them and give them ideas for everyday living. Of course I asked, “Where were you when I needed you!” Needless to say we started in the jewelry business together. This girl is a natural born salesperson and is as we all are we are, women, wives, mothers, homemakers, breadwinners, and candlestick makers, I think that is how it goes! Anyway, I digress, something I am sure no one else does, that’s a funny. Stormi created a business plan for local businesses, shops, and salons to benefit from selling our Shiny Things, Inc. line of jewelry and created displays for them. She has sold our Jewelry and Accessories at the local flea market and in doing so has made some wonderful contacts with people who wanted to buy wholesale from us, and so the story goes, another venture started. Our Wholesale Division was launched. You Go Girl! That Stormi is so talented that she could probably do this whole thing by herself. Together, we are struggling to make this magazine a reality and because this magazine began as a dream in the minds of three different women, who were brought together with one goal in mind, CELEBRATE MAGAZINE, INC. has become a reality. If we three women have anything to do with it, it will be a success. How does that song go… “I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR”Sandra ReynoldsPresident, Celebrate Magazine, Inc.

Celebrate the 15th Anniversary of Buddy Check 12

stormisworld — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:24:25 +0000

Fifteen years ago we didn’t talk much about breast cancer on TV. We didn’t wear pink ribbons and we didn’t remind each other to do self exams. In fact, many women still considered cancer a death sentence. Buddy Check 12 changed all that. Now, cities all over the country—and the world—have copied what we started here on the First Coast. We’ve inspired countless women to realize they have the power to save their own lives. Best of all, Buddy Check 12 has saved the lives of 264 local women. (The number is likely much higher because not every woman wants her story public.) With our partner, Baptist Medical Center, we’ve given women more than 757,000 Buddy Check kits with reminder stickers for every 12^th of the month. Buddy Check 12 truly belongs to everyone on the First Coast. It’s always been a woman-to-woman effort. I think about the Jacksonville nurse who took Buddy Check 12 to Nome, Alaska and taught women there to do self exams and get buddies. One of our success stories, Patti Scarborough, marched into a TV station in Hawaii and told them to get on the Buddy Check bandwagon. Another lady jammed 40 Buddy Check kits in her suitcase and handed them out all over Italy at tourist stops. I remember the huge debate we had in the newsroom when I first started Buddy Check. Some of the producers, with their natural instinct for fast-paced news, didn’t want to do Buddy Check over and over. I kept telling them women need to be bugged every month or they would skip checking. I guess being stubborn paid off. Thousands of women started calling in for kits and the producers could see Buddy Check worked. Every single month for 15 years now, I’ve pestered everyone on the news on Buddy Check 12 day. (I just missed it once during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.) It’s thrilling now to see our survivors. I believe we’ve given women the guts to buck their doctor when they know something is wrong. I’ve learned over the years women have a very accurate inner voice. Willie Mae Brinson found a lump doing Buddy Check 12. She says, “I’m the one whose doctor said it can’t be cancer because you had a mammogram 9 months ago.” She marched out of that office and went to another doctor the next day. Willie Mae had the knowledge from Buddy Check and the determination from herself to catch breast cancer early. So congratulations to every single one of you who chose to fight cancer face-to-face. You didn’t wimp out. You didn’t get sucked into the tricky game of “It-can’t-happen-to-me”. Most of all, you didn’t get pumped up about Buddy Check and then fizzle out. Many of you have been checking and reminding your buddies for years. If I do a little math I come up with the number 780. That means I’ve called my buddy, my mom in Missouri, almost 800 times during the last 15 years to say, “Mom, its Buddy Check Day. I love you!” We’re getting such nice comments from TV stations around the country. I’ll share one with you from our Gannett sister station in Denver, KUSA. The Denver station has been doing Buddy Check for years now. Kim Christiansen, anchor and Buddy Check reporter there, says, “We want to extend our congratulations to all of you in Jacksonville and Buddy Check 12. Because of you we have Buddy Check 9.” She says “thousands” of viewers have called their station to say Buddy Check has helped them, in many cases, save their own lives. Once again, it’s a tribute to everyone on the First Coast. If you’d like a free Buddy Check 12 kits, just call our faithful partner of 15 years, Baptist Medical Center. The number is 202-CARE. We will mail you the kits for free. I want to give a special thanks to Joanelle Mulrain, who was an “idea whiz” many years ago. She worked at Baptist and helped formulate the very beginnings of Buddy Check 12 through her compassion and talent. Since then many folks there, including the ever-enthusiastic Cindy Hamilton and the knowledgeable Marian Bender, have helped us keep Buddy Check alive and thriving. Happy 15^th Anniversary, Buddy Check 12!

An Interview with Jeannie Blaylock by Sandra Reynolds

stormisworld — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 16:08:38 +0000

Jeannie Blaylock is the co-anchor of the First Coast News in Jacksonville, Florida and she is the First Coast News Healthwatch reporter. Jeannie graduated valedictorian from high school in Cape Girardeau. Missouri. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from William Jewell College a BA and a triple major in English, Communication and Art. She completed part of her undergraduate work at Oxford University in England. She also studied at the BBC in London. Jeannie specializes in trying to make good things happen from tragedy. For instance, Jeannie has helped thousands of parents try to keep their children off drugs. She won her first Emmy for showing the tricks kids use to hide drug usage from their parents. Jeannie has won many awards, including twelve Emmys and a Peabody award.

Jeannie is the first person in Jacksonville ever to win a Peabody. The award recognizes her contribution in the creation of the “Buddy Check 12″ program, a system to help women overcome breast cancer through early detection. Jeannie started doing buddy check with her mom in Missouri.

I talked with Jeannie today about the program “Buddy check 12″ which she started years ago. I wanted to know how it was started and how it has grown into the magnitude that it has become. The impact that it has made on the lives of thousands of women across the nation is phenomenal. Jeannie told me the story about a very dear friend of hers in Missouri who at the age of 29 years old found she had a lump in her breast. Went to her physician. He said that she was too young to have breast cancer. After her baby was born the lump was still there. She returned to her physician but by that time it had metastasized and she died. Jeannie stated that this was before there was ever any talk of breast cancer, before the word breast was ever spoken on television. She became very angry and wondered why people were not talking about this? She got together with her mom and started to do the self breast exam together. Jeannie stated that at first it was difficult for her mom to do this, to touch herself, which is why a lot of women did not do this. But with encouragement, she and her mom started to call each other once a month to do the breast self exam. This was all before Jeannie had children. She stated that she was more worried about her mom getting cancer than herself.Jeannie said that after this they went to Baptist Medical Center and brainstormed with the oncologist, and the nurses and the people in the breast cancer unit and we decided that they would launch it together and call it Buddy Check 12. That was thirteen years ago. On the 12^th of every single month for all these years they have been reminding women to do their breast self exam. Women have told Jeannie, that because of the continuous reminding of the breast self exam, it has literally saved their life. Breast cancer is so easy to deal with if caught early, states Jeannie, but we all don’t do this and that is the beauty of having a buddy. Your buddy calls you and asks you have you done your exam today and if not call them back. Jeannie said that she has watched buddy check 12 just blossom not just in the United States but all over the world. It has been translated into other languages. Its in Haiti, Germany, England, and China. A nurse in Jacksonville took it to Nome, Alaska, and to Canada. Jeannie said that she took it to Granada and watched women decide how easy this is and save their own lives. Jeannie showed me a picture of a lady she helped in Granada. She has been to Granada three times. Jeannie got the television station there to start doing the buddy check 12 and the lady was able to watch it on television. She told me that they believe that if you got cancer you had done something evil in your life and that you needed to be punished. They called it the big C or the beast and they would whisper it. Women who had breast cancer would hide in their homes and they once asked Jeannie if she would go and visit a certain woman because she would not come out anymore. She went and convinced the woman that this was not a punishment and that this just happened naturally and if you catch it early enough you can get rid of it. Now their newspapers, television stations, and radio stations do buddy check 12 in Granada. This is just one example of informing women that you can be free from this fear, and that makes a huge impact. Jeannie told me that she still keeps in touch with the women whom she has helped through the Buddy Check 12 program. We challenge you to call your best friend and start your own Buddy Check 12. For information you can call Baptist Health at 904-202-CARE or in your area call your local hospital to see if they have the Buddy Check 12 program if not encourage them to do so.