In celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Project GiveBack we have compiled a mixtape of positive themed songs entitled Make A Difference Mixtape Volume I.  This served as the soundtrack for GiveBack Saturday 2024 and will continue to resonate with the Project GiveBack team.  The anticipated debut is out now and features some exciting artists.  This project was produced by Ali Glover and Ransom Miller, III and Harrison Miller were executive producers.  This is the first phase of the plan to launch the Make A Difference Youth Poetry and Music Contest.  Make A Difference Mixtape Volume II will feature established artists and participants in the poetry and music contests.  The expected release date of Volume II is tentatively scheduled for February 2025.  Thank you to all of the contributing artists and our outstanding producer Ali Glover.  If you would like more information about the Youth Poetry and Music Contest, please email makeadifferencemixtape@gmail.com.

 PGB Mixtape v1

Song and Featured Artists

Opening: Do something special for someone else – Ransom Miller, III

I Made It! by Dasan Ahanu – @dasanahanu - dasanahanu.com

Interlude: Empower yourself – HarDisha Miller, Armstrong Williams

Everybody Eats by Mo Betta – @betta_mo

Interlude: It’s a great feeling – Gonzaga Wrestling

Higher performed by Community of Hope AME Choir - Rev. Tony Lee – @cmtyofhope - hiphopenation.com

Interlude: I love helping people – Harrison Burgess Miller

Own Accord by Marc Andre – @marcushizzle

Interlude: Strong Communities – Kenyan McDuffie @cm_mcduffie – kenyanmcduffiedc.com

What is Success? by Dr. Thomas Rashad Easley @dr.thomasrashadeasley – mindheartfordiversity.com

Follow Me by Tony Foster, Jr.  @tonyfosterjr – sonofthecity.com

Interlude: GiveBackSaturday – Ransom Miller, III, Miles Rawls, Wendy Gadson, Anthony Bardonille, Sean Glover, Mo Betta,

God has smiled on me performed by Community of Hope AME Choir – Rev. Tony Lee – @cmtyofhope - hiphopenation.com

Please save the date of 11.19.2022 for GiveBack Saturday.   Our goal is to provide over 4,000 food baskets to needy families in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia.  We have confirmed our distribution sites in Maryland and Virginia and we hope to finalize the Washington DC location(s) very soon.

We are elated to confirm Bailey Real Estate as a 2020 Champion Spirit Sponsor.  For the past several years Bailey Real Estate Holdings LLC has supported Project GiveBack’s charitable efforts at the highest sponsorship level.  Project GiveBack Founder Ransom Miller, III commented, “This level of sustained commitment to supporting community service effort is truly inspiring, we are grateful for this partnership.”  In addition to financial support, Bailey Real Estate leadership and employees have spent their time volunteering regularly at Project GiveBack service events.  Please join me in thanking Jerome Bailey and his leadership team for their continued commitment to making a difference in our community.   For information on how you or your company/organization can become a sponsor please email ransom@projectgiveback.org

NBC4 Coverage: DC Org Hands Out Thanksgiving Meals for 25th Year – Twitter: @DerrickWard4 General Assignment reporter at NBC 4 Washington covering the DMV

Last year, volunteers delivered boxes full of food to over 2,000 families within our local community. We are thankful to those volunteers who have worked with us in years past and hope that Project Giveback will be considered again for your holiday community service efforts.  We also look forward to meeting and working with new volunteers! You can register to volunteer at www.projectgiveback.org/registration/ after September 1st.

Below are this year’s available volunteer shifts, as well as the numbers of persons needed for each shift:

Saturday, November 19, 2016 (Volunteer Registration will begin 9/1/2016)

Washington DC Headquarters

Barry Farms Recreation Center

1230 Sumner Rd SE, Washington, DC 20020

7:30AM-9:30AM – volunteers needed to assemble food baskets (300 volunteers)

10:00AM-2:00PM – volunteers needed to deliver food baskets – maps will be provided (300 volunteers)

NOVA Distribution Site

Details on Northern Virginia Distribution will be posted on 9/20/16 Contact ransom@projectgiveback.org for urgent questions.

Working with us will only take up a small part of your holiday but will have a lasting effect on those benefiting from your efforts, including you!  Project Giveback is a child friendly organization; we welcome children at our events, as we believe you are never too young to learn the importance of “Giving Back”.  We also provide community service hours for students who attend schools where this is a requirement.

A light breakfast will be provided including coffee, morning juices and water so don’t worry about stopping by your local morning cafe because we’ve got you covered!

Questions:

Dee Edwards, general event information, dee@projectgiveback.org

Edgar Jimenez, on-line registration queries, 301-996-5308, edgar@projectgiveback.org

Ransom Miller, III, sponsorship, 202-321-1911, ransom@projectgiveback.org

LaShawn White, media inquiries, lashawn@projectgiveback.org

Media Contact: LaShawn M. White

Media@projectgiveback.org

240-565-5563

PROJECT GIVEBACK PRESENTS THE 20TH ANNUAL THANKSGIVING FOOD DISTRIBUTION TO FEED OVER 1,500 FAMILIES ON NOV. 22nd

500+ Volunteers will package over a week’s worth of food for area families

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Saturday, November 22rd, Project GiveBack will bring together hundreds of volunteers and families at Columbia Heights Educational Campus (3101 16th St. NW, Washington, DC) to package and deliver Thanksgiving dinner and additional food items for over a week ,to more than 1,500 families in the Greater Washington Metropolitan area. Project GiveBack volunteers will assemble turkeys, vegetables, potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce and plenty of other holiday favorites.

One in eight district household’s fight with the threat of hunger and many of families are suffering. Project GiveBack founder, Ransom Miller began this movement to aide in the relief of these families and thus brought together friends, families, organizations, churches, students and volunteers to reach these families to ensure that every family receives the healthy Thanksgiving meal they deserve. The Thanksgiving Food Distribution has attracted support from TV personality Omarosa Manigault, Washington Redskins wide-receiver Josh Morgan and Hip-Hop Artist/Actor Common.

With continued support from Platinum Sponsors, Acquisition, Research & Logistics, Inc., KPMG, Refuge Baptist Assembly, 2HB Software, and The Carmen Group, Project GiveBack is able to ‘GiveBack’ to the community year-round with The Annual Children’s Toy Drive, The Computer Sponsor Program, The Children’s Easter Celebration, and The Youth EXPOSURE Program. Project GiveBack had also gained support from, Howard University, American University, and Ballou High School, as well as local Girl Scout troops and members of several national fraternities and sororities.

Project GiveBack volunteers will begin at 7:30 AM by packaging food items while volunteer drivers deliver the food parcels to over 1,500 local families and assisted living facilities throughout DC, MD, and VA beginning at 10:00 AM. To learn more about Project GiveBack visit: www.projectgiveback.org.

About Project GiveBack

Project GiveBack is a community service organization working to provide programs and assistance for less fortunate individuals, families and children in the greater Washington metropolitan area. In 1995 Ransom Miller, III and a handful of friends took the initiative to create Thanksgiving gift baskets and distributed them to families in need. During the first year, Project GiveBack delivered food to six families. Since those initial efforts Project GiveBack has provided meals and support to over 3,500 families and this year alone, will feed 1,500 families. Project GiveBack encourages people to join our volunteers and supporters who share our mission of building community through service.

###

Hours before the sun rose on Saturday, the 16th annual Project GiveBack Thanksgiving Food Distribution was underway.  At 3 a.m., Project Giveback founder Ransom Miller, logistics coordinator Rick McLean and board member Patrick Stewart were at a food warehouse in Hyattsville, MD, with three empty 24-foot trucks.  By 4:30 a.m., all three trucks, loaded with enough food for more than 1000 families, were pulling up to Bell Mulitcultural High School in Columbia Heights, headquarters for this year’s event. They were met by a team of volunteers which includes a large number of members of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, who have made it a tradition to man the 5 a.m. shift that unloads the food trucks.  By 6 a.m., the walls of Bell High’s cafeteria were lined high with boxed stacks of food; chicken and sweet potatoes, fish fillets, sausage and beef patties, stuffing, celery, and onions, apples and oranges, and 1000 turkeys.   “Everything worked like clockwork,” said Project GiveBack founder Ransom Miller. “This used to be just me and people who knew me, and now it’s people who don’t even know who I am.  It shows that other people have taken ownership and invited their friends and family to be part of it.  That’s what you want, you want everyone to feel like they own it.”  It was an impressive mass of food, even to Project GiveBack volunteer like Samantha Hawkins, who started volunteering 15 years ago, when the program was distributing food to six families.  But as the program has grown, so has the need.  “We only have a certain amount of slots, and we were able to assist a lot more people this year” Hawkins said.  “But with the economy being the way it is, I got a lot of email requests this year.  We got several requests where both parents had lost a job.” By 6:30, more than 600 Project GiveBack volunteers were filling boxes with enough food for two weeks, plus Thanksgiving dinner, for distribution from Bell High’s cafeteria.   “We had people volunteering to deliver meals after they finished packing boxes,” said Project GiveBack media coordinator Wendy Gray. 

From Bell, food deliveries went out across the region; 100 boxes to La Clinica Del Pueblo Community Health Center.  One hundred boxes to Northern Virginia.  One hundred twenty five boxes to military families at Anacostia Naval Station.  Landover, Md., a joint delivery to the Kentland and Glenarden recreation centers.  Fifty boxes to the Barry Farms housing project in Southeast DC.   “There’s no organization like this,” said Patrick Stewart, whose commitment to Project GiveBack began 5 years ago, as a volunteer delivering individual meals to families in need.  Stewart now a Project GiveBack board member, spent most of the day doing bulk deliveries.  Stewart’s day ended with a more personal mission.  When a volunteer returned a box to the distribution center after being unable to deliver it, Stewart raised his hand, and delivered the food to an elderly woman in Northeast Washington.  “She was so appreciative,” Stewart said. “That’s what attracted me to Project GiveBack.”  The program’s founder, Ransom Miller, has seen the food distribution program grow beyond his wildest expectations, but his visions are keeping pace. Sixteen years ago, Project GiveBack delivered food to six families.  Two years ago, the program served 500 families, growing to 900 last year, and 1000 in 2010.  Miller has found that “the more you put yourself out there, the more stories you hear about people in need.  He imagines the effort expanding to Baltimore, Virginia, and points beyond.  “The more you put yourself out there, the more stories you hear,” said Miller.  “It would be cool would be if people did what we’re doing everywhere.”

(Project GiveBack is still accepting donations to help cover the costs of the 2010 Thanksgiving Food Distribution event.  Project GiveBack is currently planning an effort to distribute toys and age appropriate books to low income children over the Christmas Holiday in the DC Area.  For more information visit www.projectgiveback.org)

Visit WTOP.com to see its coverage of the event. Search on keyword giveback or click the following link: http://wtop.com/?sid=2126221&nid=25