(Last) Christmas in (this) July!

Jeff Vinik, the owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning, the team for whom I work, gets a lot of attention for his philanthropic efforts in the Tampa Bay community. One of the things he does that doesn't get any attention (because it's a low-key, in-house staff initiative) is he authorizes an amount of cash to be made available to each Lightning employee, who is then allowed to go out and spend that cash on some charitable endeavor of their choosing. Theoretically, you could take that cash and just drop the whole lump sum in the first donation kettle you come across. Or you can choose to do something more elaborate. Whatever you want. The organization doesn't scrutinize you, trusting each individual to honor the spirit of the endeavor.

I tend to skew toward the elaborate because that's much more fun.

So for the third year in a row, I enlisted the help of shopping expert Lynne Austin and we invaded a dollar store in search of items to help The Volunteer Way, a non-profit agency that helps people in need in Port Richey. brought along our mutual friend Kelly to document the proceedings (she also edited the finished product, which she just finished yesterday and is why this is just coming out now).

And here's how that went down...