BUZZ

#101 Southwest Virginia Ballet
From free classes for Roanoke City schoolchildren to free performances for families with special needs, Southwest Virginia Ballet has transformed lives throughout our region through dance, artistry and passion … despite a website that features none of those things. As a 30th birthday gift to Southwest Virginia Ballet, digital marketing specialist Carrie Cousins provides the nonprofit with an online transformation of its own.

#102 Healing Strides with 5 Points Creative
Healing Strides of Virginia often refers to itself as one of the region's “best kept secrets” for its work providing therapeutic horse-riding services for people suffering from neurological disorders including children with autism and veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. But thanks to a $25,000 “marketing makeover” by 5 Points Creative, the nonprofit based in Boones Mill is a secret no longer.

#103 Mill Mountain Zoo with Wordsprint
Since its founding in 1952, Mill Mountain Zoo has been a nursery rhyme-themed amusement park featuring exotic animals. Today, the iconic attraction’s focus on education and conservation is so radically different that the word “zoo” no longer applies. Wordsprint, a print marketing company based in Blacksburg, guides the zoo’s board and staff in crafting a new identity as it approaches its 70th birthday atop Mill Mountain.

#104 RAM House with Wheeler Digital
Like all nonprofits, RAM (Roanoke-Area Ministries) House has been impacted by COVID-19 as it struggles to meet the growing needs of our community’s homeless population. While an older cadre of supporters helps the nonprofit provide food, clothing, a day shelter and financial assistance for more than 100 people a day, Wheeler Digital donates its expertise to help RAM recruit younger volunteers and donors to sustain the organization’s work for years to come.

#105 Mountain Valley Charitable Foundation
Mountain Valley Charitable Foundation has made eastern Montgomery County, Virginia, the “community that could.” Over the last 15 years MVCF has redeveloped an abandoned nursing home into a wellness center, community center, museum and library; transformed an old fire station into a food pantry and thrift shop; created Old Town Fields concert venue out of a former high school football field; and founded the Eastmont Tomato Festival.

#106 Giles County Foster Care
Like most places in Virginia, rural Giles County has been trying to help too many foster children with too few homes. Many must be placed in other counties hours away from their homes, schools, friends and other services, exacerbating an already traumatic experience. Thankfully, 5Points Creative in Roanoke has experience in this world, having recently helped DePaul Community Services recruit more foster families to its cause. Together, they provide Giles County with resources … and hope.

#107 Blue Ridge Women’s Center
A woman confronting an unexpected pregnancy too often doesn't know where to turn. Blue Ridge Women’s Center wants her to turn to them and their resources that support her pregnancy, her transition to motherhood, or her decision to make an adoption plan. Through an array of radio stations and digital marketing pros, Mel Wheeler, Inc.,is spreading the nonprofit’s mission to help women “feel empowered to make the best decision for themselves and their families."

#108 Christiansburg Institute, Part 1
For 100 years, the Christiansburg Institute stood as one of the finest schools for Black Americans in Virginia. Founded in 1866 just a year after the Civil War put an end to slavery, Christiansburg Institute became a testament to African-American self-preservation, educating thousands of students on its 185-acre campus. Education giants such as Booker T. Washington served as superintendent.

But in 1966 school integration finally took hold in Virginia … and Christiansburg Institute’s legacy was quite literally whitewashed away. Its academic buildings were shuttered. Its students scattered to previously whites-only schools. Its land subdivided and sold off. Today all that’s left is one abandoned building on four acres.

But there’s a group of passionate people dedicated to preserving its history … and creating a catalyst for community conversations, racial justice and change. Helping them is Spectrum Media Solutions, which designed and donated a new website so they can share their story to a national audience.







#109 Christiansburg Institute, Part 2
For 100 years, the Christiansburg Institute stood as one of the finest schools for Black Americans in Virginia. Founded in 1866 just a year after the Civil War put an end to slavery, Christiansburg Institute became a testament to African-American self-preservation, educating thousands of students on its 185-acre campus. Education giants such as Booker T. Washington served as superintendent.

But in 1966 school integration finally took hold in Virginia … and Christiansburg Institute’s legacy was quite literally whitewashed away. Its academic buildings were shuttered. Its students scattered to previously whites-only schools. Its land subdivided and sold off. Today all that’s left is one abandoned building on four acres.

But there’s a group of passionate people dedicated to preserving its history … and creating a catalyst for community conversations, racial justice and change. Helping them is Spectrum Media Solutions, which designed and donated a new website so they can share their story to a national audience.

#110 CATF – Children’s Assistive Technology Service
“I don’t want to say insurance doesn’t care, they just don’t understand. If it doesn’t affect you, you don’t understand.” More than 1,000 Virginia families each year struggle to afford costlywheelchairs, walkers, standers and strollers for their special needs children.

Thankfully, there’s Children’s Assistive Technology Service, aka C.A.T.S., a nonprofit providing children across the state with refurbished pediatric rehabilitation equipment … all at no cost. Helping fund C.A.T.S.’ mission is an annual Halloween event, Hallowheels. Our good friends at 5Points Creative – with generous help by EZRampz Mobility Solutions, WDBJ7 and WWBT – are back with a fantastic marketing campaign to get more people to know about, and financially support, this life-changing event.

#111 Virginia Children’s Theatre and Tudor House
In summer 2020, Roanoke business and swimming icon Louis Tudor committed suicide. Out of the tragedy, Tudor House was born, a nonprofit that provides resources for individuals suffering from depression and mental illness.

In February 2022, Tudor House and Virginia Children’s Theatre are partnering to present “Apologies: A play about teenage suicide” to schools and families throughout southwest Virginia and beyond. Providing the “buzz” for these two nonprofits are a pair of cutting edge marketing companies — Roava Digital and Nero Digital Design.

#112 Brain Injury Services of Southwest Virginia
In 1997, 10-year-old Jason Rooker accidentally hung himself while playing in his front yard. The brain injury he suffered would eventually take his life … and inspire his parents to found a nonprofit to help other New River Valley families struggling with such tragedies: Brain Injury Services of Southwest Virginia.

But over the years BISSWVA has grown beyond the NRV to provide resources to 11,000 square miles of Virginia, from Martinsville and Lynchburg to Alleghany and Lee County. And the unwieldiness of the name can be difficult for its clients to remember. Marketing specialist Wordsprint, which helped rebrand Mill Mountain Zoo and Eastmont Community Foundation in previous episodes of BUZZ, returns to provide its pro bono expertise.

#113 Healing Arts in the Roanoke Valley
Throughout his life, Dr. Robert L.A. Keeley was not only known for his medical talents in the Roanoke Valley, but his musical gifts as well. So much so that upon his death, Carilion Clinic in collaboration with the Keeley family founded a Healing Arts program. Today, Carilion Clinic offers a variety of “healing arts” resources such as artists-in-residence who provide therapeutic treatments to patients and staff.

Other nonprofits are also working in this space. Roanoke Symphony has partnered with Anderson Music Therapy on regular programs for memory-loss nursing home residents. Taubman Museum of Art hosts “ healing ceiling tiles” in which community members turn ceiling tiles into artwork that's hung in Carilion Clinic patient rooms. This episode is the third of a 6-part series of BUZZ focusing on Roanoke’s arts and cultural nonprofits, produced in collaboration with the Roanoke Cultural Endowment, City of Roanoke, and Carilion Clinic.

#114 Saint Francis Service Dogs
For more than 150 Virginians with disabilities, dogs are not only best friends, they literally make life meaningful and possible. Since 1996, Saint Francis Service Dogs has provided incredibly trained four-legged caregivers that assist in daily living for families confronting autism, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, rheumatoid arthritis, brain injuries, amputations and paralysis.

Lesser known is the fact that these dogs also provide service to inmates at Bland Correctional Center who help raise and care for them through a prison puppy program. And they provide comfort and calming in facilities throughout Virginia, namely Blue Ridge Autism and Achievement Center and Virginia Tech School of Medicine.

Dog-lover and marketing maven Carrie Cousins, director of marketing at LeadPoint Digital, returns to BUZZ to help Saint Francis Service Dogs enhance its popular “Barks & Rec” fundraiser.

#115 West End Center
In the 1970s during summers and after school, children often wandered the streets without supervision of Roanoke’s West End, a neighborhood defined by poverty and crime, vacant lots and vandalized buildings. But then a group of churches and civic groups came together to establish West End Center as a safe haven — and more importantly, hope — for the neighborhood children. Today, West End Center serves about 150 children each year, providing them and their families with low-cost academic enrichment, wellness programs and leadership training to become productive, responsible adults.

BUZZ partner 5Points Creative returns to provide a comprehensive marketing package to promote West End Center to a wider audience.