eSpecially Ben

“One of the best things I have seen children experience during a TR Summer Camp is…summer camp! At TR camps, every child is encouraged to participate in all activities, to the best of their ability. Whether the plan for the day includes pottery, music, swimming, gardening activities, a field trip, or a visit with snakes and turtles…each and every day holds surprises and the potential for learning. I love seeing the children form friendships…especially when the “camp buddies” get together outside of camp, too.”   -- Karen, Camp Staff Therapeutic Recreation Camp is $100 per week per child and includes 5 full days of activities and field trips. The price is reasonable, but can still be a burden for families. Amazing Race is a fundraising event for the scholarship fund. We have an eSpecially Ben team for Amazing Race and we need your help. A $5 or $10 donation will go a long way. ****As of 2/16/12 at 4pm, Amazing Race has been cancelled. Thank you for your support! **** You c

I write this from bed, feet propped up with plans of a nap in my near future. In fact the nap was so near in the future, I finished this Sunday night. My eSpecially Ben teammate, Ryan, is watching ACC basketball on the sofa, nursing sore muscles and joints. After running through the streets of downtown Charlotte, we are wiped out. A day later, we are still recovering. Clearly, this is a "before the race starts" photo. This is us looking fierce. As we left the house and made our way to the starting point, our energy and enthusiasm was high. We had read about Charlotte history the night before and felt relatively comfortable answering trivia questions. When we got there, we were happy to see 13 teams assembled. Many teams came wearing costumes and Ryan and I regretted not wearing our eSpecially Ben t-shirts with capes. 80's Girls Caped crusaders TR Pixies Guys Just Trying to be Girls Not sure what they were going for... The race st

  With a backpack full of snacks, water, cell phone and maps, Ryan and I will end this whirlwind of a week by competing in our local Amazing Race tomorrow. We enter this competition with little information and preparation. My grandiose plan of t-shirts, capes and marathon study sessions ended with a broken dishwasher and residual exhaustion from the About.com Awards. From what we know about the race, we start by answering trivia questions about Charlotte. If answered correctly, we get to take off minutes from our final time. At 9:15am, we take off in search of clues of specific locations in Charlotte, take a photo and then find check-in stations to turn in our pictures. Sounds easy right? Ryan cannot wait to get this over and I am curious to how it will all work. This could be a great marriage team builder or we could end up walking on opposite sides of the street. Ryan is a great puzzle solver and I know the city fairly well, but that does not mean we may have heated discussion

With almost 50% of the votes, our Amazing Race Team Name will be.... drum roll please eSpecially Ben Elizabeth Edwards, Ben's former teacher from 3 and 4 year old preschool, is the winner for having suggested this team name. She is the grand prize winner of a gift card to our local French Bakery, Amelie's .  Thank you to everyone for contributing names and voting.  We raised $180 for the Amazing Race. All proceeds will go to the summer camp scholarship through Therapeutic Recreation. Thank you to everyone who has supported our team.

Over the next two weeks, please cast your vote for our Amazing Race Team Name. You may vote as many times as you would like. The box to the right of the eSpeciallyBen site has the information. On another note, all 15 Ben Bookmarks have sold - raising $150! I will put in another order if I get enough requests. Thank you for your support.

Thank you for your great responses to my request for team name ideas for Amazing Race. The winning name will be posted on t-shirts and banners. We will show our team spirit to Charlotte. Beginning Friday, you may vote for the one name that you like the best. A box on the right-hand side of this site will have these choices. Of course, you may vote as many times as you would like. Here they are: Bentastic Ben the Builder Ben and the Builders eSpecially Ben Peanut Butter and Benanas The Red-Haired Fighters The Amazing Ben   Unfinished Benness (The TV show's theme this season is Unfinished Business) If you have a creative jolt in the next few days and want your idea added, late entries will be accepted. Just email them to me at vanessainfanzon@gmail.com or include them in the comment section below. Remember there will be a prize for the creator of the winning name!

  50 Days Until Amazing Race As many of you have read, Ryan and I will be contestants in our local version of Amazing Race on Saturday, March 12, 2011. The county parks and recreation department is organizing this event to raise money for the scholarship fund for Therapeutic Recreation camps offered during the summer for people with special needs. To catch up read here .   We still need your support!   1. Donate $10 and receive a Ben Bookmark. Proceeds will be sent to the scholarship fund. Send me a private email at vanessainfanzon@gmail.com. 2. We need a team name. We have two suggestions for team names: eSpecially Ben and Bentastic . We want a few more so everyone can vote for their favorite. Get your creative juices flowing and send us your suggestions in the comment section below. There will be a prize for the person whose team name is chosen. Prize categories for Amazing Race were announced this week: Team Spirit, Most Funds Raised and Grand Prize - a Char

I am rerunning this because we did not get a great response...perhaps you did not read it the first time. Ryan and I will be a team competing in the Mecklenburg Parks and Recreation's Therapeutic Recreation Department's Amazing Race on Saturday, March 12, 2011. And we are in it to win it! In yesterday's post , I said we are looking for people to help on our virtual pit crew.  Here are ways for you to get involved: 1. What's in a name? Help us determine our team name. Submit your ideas in the comment section. 2. Raising the Dough - In order to raise funds for our $50 registration fee and the summer camp scholarship fund and spread the word about this website, we are offering these two-sided bookmarks for $10 each. $7 of each bookmark purchased will be sent directly to the registration and Summer Camp Scholarship Fund. If you are interested in purchasing one or more bookmarks, please email me directly at vanessainfanzon@gmail.com . Let me know how many you wou

Amazing Race in Charlotte Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation - Therapeutic Recreation Department : November 6 marked the beginning of a new TR fund raising tradition - The Therapeutic Recreation’s Amazing Race. This "dry run" Amazing Race started and ended at Marshall Park . Fifteen teams piloted the 4 mile course around Uptown Charlotte, solving clues and riddles to help them find their way through town. Each clue instructed teams to take a picture of or answer a question about a specific piece of Charlotte history or art, and check their answers in at 6 stops along their route. Over 150 children with special needs attend camp though Park and Recreation’s TR Department. Children from ages 3 to 21 with physical, mental and emotional issues are able to participate in an all day summer camp for up to 7 weeks. The camp features field trips to Lazy 5 Ranch , Space Kidets and other fun places in the Charlotte area. Campers are kept active with developmentally appropri

Therapeutic Recreation’s Amazing Race What is Therapeutic Recreation’s Amazing Race and why should I register or donate? Therapeutic Recreation’s Amazing Race is a fun filled urban adventure where two person teams solve puzzles, figure out clues, find locations and complete challenges while discovering uptown Charlotte. Your registration fee ($100 for a two person team) will be deposited directly into the Therapeutic Recreation Summer Day Camp Scholarship fund that is administered through Partners for Parks, Inc. This dedicated scholarship fund supplies financial support for pre-schoolers, youth, teens and young adults who have disabilities to attend Therapeutic Recreation Summer Day Camps. During the summer of 2010, a total of $11,000 was utilized to provide financial support for participants to attend summer day camp. All scholarships awarded were based on the economic need of the participant. This is significantly less than the amount we were able to provide for the summer of 200

An email just arrived informing us that Amazing Race is being rescheduled for the fall due to low registration. I was looking forward to it, but now I have more time to study my Charlotte trivia. I may also volunteer to help publicize this event because I do think it has the potential for being successful in terms of raising scholarship funds and awareness about the camp itself. For those of you who sent in donations, first of all - thank you so very much! Secondly, I have emailed the organization to see what to do about the donations I have received. Most likely, I will send the checks back to individual donors. Thank you all for your help with this and I will keep you updated about the new date.

Ben's summer camp, coordinated through the Therapeutic Recreation Division of the county park service is planning a fundraiser called Amazing Race , based on the reality TV show . Teams of two will compete on Saturday, March 20, for a trophy.  Being a person who lives on the edge, I signed up right away. My teammate and I will solve challenging puzzles, find crazy hidden messages and possibly eat dead worms - I made that last part up (I hope).  We do have to know our local history. Our starting time for the day of the event is based on our score on a trivia contest a few days before the race. On the day of the race, we have to walk and run to get to each location. No cars, bicycles, mopeds or public transportation allowed. No mention of brooms, though. Ben has attended this camp for the past three years on scholarship. It is a wonderful camp offering really cool weekly field trips to amusement parks, zoos, and Monkey Joe's .  Each group goes swimming at a special zero entr