Office Depot sponsored a series of posts here on MommyNiri.com and I am really pleased that I get to write about a cause that I have great passion for: education! Members of my local school’s PTA would not guess that. I honestly don’t attend any of the fundraisers meetings. I used to purchase those tons of wrapping paper out of guilt, but I don’t anymore. I once went to a fast food brand that I loathe just because some proceeds from the night would go to school. I don’t anymore.  I stopped feeling guilty. There had to be a better way to help the school rather than putting junk food in my system (or that of my kids) and honestly I DON’T need more wrapping paper or cookie dough.

While I applaud the efforts several put into these as the intention in noble, I do think they are quite outdated and refuse to do something just because everyone else did it.  I do believe there is a better way. In an age where you can check your email while having paid for the coffee on an app and already have ordered takeout, banked a check and booked movie tickets in 10 minutes on your phone, surely fundraising for your school had to evolve. So I did various things to help. Instead of laboring away promoting fast food or hoarding cookie dough in my freezer I looked to other avenues.  This is where organizations like Adopt A Classroom make perfect sense.

I am a skeptic donor. I am. While I donate items generously, money is trickier. I wonder what, where and how much is going where. With financial times crunching on us, I want make sure even more that what I give is getting in the right hands and at the right time.

What is Adopt a Classroom?

A donor selects a classroom and makes a contribution for the teacher to use and purchase much needed resources for the classroom. Donors may search for classrooms by geography, school name, teacher name or other search criteria. If a donor has no preference, Adopt-A-Classroom partners the donor with an underserved classroom in the community.

Reasons I LOVE Adopt A Classroom?

• 100% (yes you read that right) goes to the classroom. If you’re a naive donor you may not realize that several organizations sink a lot of the money into administration costs. Yes, even the big organizations.
• Accountability and track-ability!  How often do you donate money and it is “goodbye” to the cause. You have zero way of actually seeing what happened with YOUR money. Not so here.
• The items, not the money, reaches the classroom. Of course a teacher needs money to purchase supplies. You provide that. Then with the network of vendors teachers purchase supplies from your donation money. How perfect is that?
• Teachers know what they need. While donation of supplies seem good, teachers sometimes have a surplus of some items. My kid’s Kindergarten teacher begged us not to bother purchasing books for the classroom from the recent book fair since she was set in that department. This way the teacher builds lists that make sense for the classroom.

When I was approached by DoubleTree by Hilton about DTour I thought how wicked smart that it was to leverage working with Google. What is DTour? It is a first-of-its-kind YouTube channel for the hotel industry, created in collaboration with Google.  Being a blogger I already know the value of content. User content is so much more believable than some advertising.

I love that you can learn so much from other travelers and add to the conversation. Nothing like traveling to open up worlds as as it my passion I am so excited, now that my girls are older, to explore with them. Of course traveling is way nicer when you have a lovely hotel to spend the night in, right?  Well DoubleTree by Hilton is pretty excited about this amazing launch of DTour and they are doing something pretty cool to celebrate.

About DTour:

Using a new technology for YouTube created by software developer ThisMoment, DTour was created for travelers eager to ‘take a DTour’ – and keen to share their experiences with like-minded adventure-seekers around the world. In fact, DTour is the first custom-built YouTube brand channel in the hotel industry. Users can also explore other travelers’ favorite photos, videos, tips and stories to get inspired to plan the trips they’ve always wanted to take.

They have launched a contest called DTour of a Lifetime competition where 6 people will be awarded an adventure of a lifetime.  Each winner will receive a travel assignment to one of six continents where DoubleTree by Hilton properties are located – from the Americas to Australia and Asia to Africa – experiencing DoubleTree by Hilton hospitality, meeting locals and curating their own travel tips and stories for DTour.

How wicked awesome is that? I can’t see a single reason you would not want to enter, can you?

And to get you in the traveling mood, how does one night in a DoubleTree by Hilton property sound?

Want to win a night in a DoubleTree by Hilton property ? 

Valid in US only. The voucher is good for one night in a DoubleTree by Hilton property. To win, leave a comment below as to where would you use this voucher to stay? That’s it easy-peasy, no hoop jumping needed here on MommyNiri.com

 Winner chosen by random.org. Giveaways open to  US residents only 21+ only. Winner must reply within 24 hours or new winner will be drawn. 

Please note the Rules and Regulations of contests at MommyNiri.com. Entering this contest means you have read and wish to comply with those rules.

Please DO NOT leave your email address within the comment!!! Contest closes on May 25th 2013.

Don’t forget to visit out other fabulous giveaways on MommyNiri.com

Disclosure: DoubleTree by Hilton has provided me for a voucher for review and giveaway!

I was recently invited to a launch of Walgreens pharmacy in Boston. Personally I wondered what the big deal about it was since pharmacies are dime a dozen, right? But, this was working with Collective Bias and some pretty amazing people there so I said yes. I trusted their instinct and it was a good excuse to see them.

Well the surprise was on me. Well this was a Walgreens Flagship Store! What is the difference?  There’s just so much to say and show and I figured a flurry of pictures would not do it justice. Also that would make an incredibly long post. Instead? I created a video! See it and tell me if it looks like your typical Walgreens or any typical pharmacy?

Disclosure: Walgreens has compensated me for attending and covering the launch!

So I have this thing called a BlackBerry, a BlackBerry Z10 to be precise! I may have never owned this before the Verizon Wireless guys placed this in my hand. Look I don’t hate BlackBerry but let’s get one thing clear: the world is a iPhone or BlackBerry kinda world. Yes, others exist but these two sections are so polarized, similar to Red Sox and Yankees (and in case you’re wondering this is a Red Sox girl, so there!). I have all my friends gushing over how easy it is to type and I look the other way. Sure fat fingers and iPhones don’t make the greatest match but I’d be damned if I was going to admit it. Yes I loved keys but that would stay between me and the retyping I do (a gazillion times) to get the right message across. But I LOVE having a bigger screen not swallowed up by a bunch of keys. So there, that is a good reason, right! Decision made! Side chosen! End of topic!

Or was it? I recently visited the Verizon store in NYC as part of a trip my fellow Verizon Insider lifestyle blogger team members.  I was keen on exploring other Verizon Wireless devices and I’m not paid to say this (though I do occasionally get fabulous products to test) but I LOVE Verizon. I pretty much spend most of my day online (hello social media) so I need a service that works with me, not against me. To continue on my Z10 saga, we were handed one as we learned about products like 3D puzzles, that bring animation alive as you scan the completed puzzle (a fab incentive to complete a puzzle, no?), or the JawBone Up, which not only tracks your steps but your sleep patterns too. Yes, sleep patterns, not just whether you slept but the quality of that sleep – but more on that later as mama will be taking that for a test drive.

So about that beautiful box, it had a BlackBerry Z10 in it. I swear I could hear my sister back in South Africa chuckling crazy (she is a die-hard BlackBerry fan). In fact to cut to the punch and get the mocking over with I immediately took a picture right there and texted it to her. I waited for the mockery and meanness to ensue. It didn’t. I swear I saw her get choked in excitement. Then I realized, these Blackberry people are more in love with their devices than I imagined. She called it beautiful! A device! I looked back at it and I guess if I removed my biased glasses off it was kinda beautiful. Do you know what the crazy sister did next? She took the pic I sent her with the BlackBerry Z10 and made it her profile pic. I told, crazy right?

At first I wondered is this like a cult? Why are people so gaga over the BlackBerry?

Has the world gone BBM crazy?

Yeah, I am sure you know what BBM is but it took me a while to figure the BlackBerry Messaging lingo! I have friends in several countries (and family all over too) and the one common thread I noticed was they all loved BlackBerry. There was messages of what is your BBM pin, or BBM me. The craze is global. But I was not crazy, I liked my bigger screens!

Wait, what? This is a keyless one. I kid you not people. Toss out those old images you have of what a BlackBerry looks like because this was not it. I toyed with the idea of saying “haha come over to my side with this new screen” but I knew, the joke would be on me. I was walking across, slowly, to the other side. Eating humble pie is not easy and certainly not tasty but I learned a while ago that humility is important to learning.

So closing my mouth as I chewed on humble pie, I opened my ears and mind too. I learned that the security is the reason many companies make BlackBerry a staple. Is that for real? I just used to think that they were rebelling! Well it really is because the encryption and security built into the BlackBerry devices make them the ideal device for anyone who decides that is a priority. Wait, my data is important too, shouldn’t I have a device to safeguard that? Then I learned the White House uses Blackberries too, and president Obama carries it around. I know! Humble pie has clearly been digested and I see what I have been missing. Security is important. It is important to me and it should be to everyone out there. I mean in college I did my whole thesis on Internet security and here I was blissfully unaware of it. The list of the protection it provides is long but a complete list can be found here but my favorite features are “protect your smartphone”  and (obviously) “find your smartphone” but I would take a read at the full list.

So now we have full screen? Check! Protection? Check! There are too many features to mention and in the spirit of not overwhelming you (since this BlackBerry newbie is pretty overwhelmed herself) I am just going to list a few of my “damn this is fabulous” features:

TIME SHIFT MODE and BlackBerry STORY MAKER

I have 2 little girls. Getting a picture with them not blinking is not an easy task. When I went to transfer my pictures from one phone to the other, the guy helping me threw up his hands. Yes I have that many. Because I need 34 before I get one that looks decent. (What you delete the others on time, well yay for you!). Well this feature alone would be great pinpointing that split second when the image was perfect.

BBM Video + Screen Share

Did I mention I have family and friends all over? If you skimmed over that part, go back and read it and I will wait for you right here. Ok, now that means keeping in touch. I love seeing status updates and text messages or even pictures but chatting to someone keeps it real and so much more connected. This feature is like a life-line for my kids who have never met family elsewhere. They get to see what is happening and chat about their day. I head to South Africa this year and I love that the kids already get a snapshot of my family before we get there.

BlackBerry keyboard

Why yes the typical keys are gone but this does not mean it is your typical smartphone keyless keyboard. They made it smarter. Since I still have to deal with fat finger typing syndrome it would be REALLY NICE to not have my words replaced by something that thinks it is smarter. Anyone else gets frustrated by that? So not only is the BlackBerry intuitive but adapts to you. I love that.  There are some words we use differently from each other, whether it be for job related words or culturally different words and it is nice to have a device to not assume one size fits all.

So, (I can still see you smiling sis, so knock it off) I may have to concede that I (gulp) like the BlackBerry Z10. It seems my taste in fruits may be changing!

Disclosure: I am a Verizon Lifestyle Insider Ambassador and the BlackBerry Z10 was provided to me by BlackBerry!