We are excited about a new way to fund your favorite charity, VISIBLE SCHOOL, without having to spend a dime! I know it sounds too good to be true but there are two awesome organizations through Yahoo called GoodSearch and GoodShop, which are charity donation facilitators. Once you sign up with these organizations and either search the Internet or shop online at various major stores, you will be donating money to VISIBLE SCHOOL. You don’t have to change anything you’re doing; simply by using a different search engine or logging in before you do your online shopping, you will generously giving. Just like that!

So how do you sign up? It’s so quick and easy; simply follow these steps:

Step 1:
Yahoo has teamed up with GoodSearch.com to donate a penny to VISIBLE SCHOOL every time you search the web, after you select VISIBLE SCHOOL as your charity. This is totally free as the money comes from advertisers. We earned several dollars in just a few short days with just a few of us in the office using it. It works great as a web portal (make it your startup page!), works with many browsers, and can even be loaded into your toolbar as your search function easily. I use Firefox to search and it is a snap and gives money to Visible School every time I search! Just follow directions on the Goodsearch page to add it to your websearch functionality…www.goodsearch.com

Step 2:
Goodshop.com is a sister site to GoodSearch.com. More than 700 of your favorite internet retailers and travel sites including Amazon, eBay, Target, Apple, Expedia and more have joined forces with GoodShop.com to donate part of every purchase you make to VISIBLE SCHOOL! It takes just a few seconds to go to www.goodshop.com, select VISIBLE SCHOOL as your charity, and then click through to your favorite store and shop as usual. I checked out how the experience was to buy songs at iTunes, and it was seamless…click on the Apple at GoodShop and my iTunes Store opened as usual, only now a percentage of purchase goes to the college!

Step 3:
Please tell 10 friends about GoodSearch and GoodShop today. They’ve been featured in the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Oprah Magazine and more. VISIBLE SCHOOL needs your help! If everyone began utilizing the Yahoo-based tool GoodSearch and shopped online through GoodShop, with Visible School in the designated charity line, we could fund scholarships for the entire college in one year

VISIBLE SCHOOL announces “Into the City,” a Capital Campaign to establish a new urban campus in midtown Memphis. This two year campaign, which kicked of August 2008, will allow VISIBLE SCHOOL to build a residential campus for 120 students and staff by July 2010.

With a goal of raising six million dollars for this campus, VISIBLE SCHOOL is out the gate running. A matching grant of three million dollars has been established for this project making us halfway to our dream. At a fundraiser to kick off the campaign last weekend, our Campaign Wall was already starting to fill up. Everyone from students, to staff, to community leaders is catching the vision of a new urban campus for VISIBLE SCHOOL.

How can you participate? Check out visibleschool.com/intothecity for all the campaign details and opportunities to give. All donations are matched and placed upon our Campaign Wall with your name (if you choose to be known.) You will also be given a Garden Brick on the new campus which will become part of the Garden Brick Path in the center of campus. Another way to participate is to help get the word out about this exciting campaign. Tell your friends, family, and co-workers about VISIBLE SCHOOL and the revolutionary things God is doing in the students and staff.

Ken Steorts, President of VISIBLE SCHOOL, is also available to talk to you about the campaign. Give him a call (901.381.3939) or email him at ken@visibleschool.com. This is going to be an exciting two years and you have an opportunity to be a part of it.

VISIBLE SCHOOL is back in session for 2008-2009 and we are already having an amazing time! With just under a hundred students, this is one of the biggest classes we have had so far. During our BLITZ week and orientation we had an awesome time of getting to know the new students and doing group activities. Since VISIBLE SCHOOL has great relationships with churches and community organizations we have already been going to events and concerts together as a school. As an end to orientation all Viz Kids got in free to the Family Force Five show with opening VMG band CAYERIO. It was loud and tons of fun!

Another great experience we have already had this semester was going to the Memphis Redbirds game as a school. One of VISIBLE SCHOOL’S partners donated 130 tickets for all of the staff and students to attend the Labor Day weekend game with a fireworks show at the end. It was quite possibly the most entertaining minor league baseball game—not because of the game but because our students know how to have a good time. We were faithful cheerers of the right fielder directly in front of us and were highly successful at keeping “the Wave” going around the entire stadium probably ten times. Who knew musicians could have so much fun at a sports event? And to end the evening, we had incredible fireworks going off right over our heads, the closest any of us has been to a show like that. Now it’s back to studying and playing music.

Students are getting plugged into local ministries as the Community Outreach Program of VISIBLE SCHOOL gets under way this fall. The “Viz kids” commit to 15 hours of service per semester to our partner ministries. One such organization is S.O.S., or Service Over Self, a community development ministry in the Binghampton neighborhood of Memphis. For more info see www.sosmemphis.org.

Other great programs we work with are the Refugee Empowerment Program (R.E.P) and the Neighbor Christian Center (NCC). R.E.P. exists to address the needs and concerns of the refugee population of Memphis. Students have been challenged and inspired this semester and are catching the vision of worshiping God through serving.