News from Groove With Me:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 12, 2005

GROOVE WITH ME
Free Dance School Summer Recital
Girls Discover Their Own Self Worth

New York, NY: East Harlem’s free dance school Groove With Me presents the summer program on Monday August 15th at 6:30 pm in Central Park’s Harlem Meer – entrance 110th and 5th. Seventy girls will take the stage to display vast improvements in jazz, hip hop, ballet and Afro-Cuban. Most importantly they will demonstrate an increased sense of self and self confidence.

Groove With Me’s mission is to engage girls with free and accessible dance classes, as an alternative to negative behavior and to prevent destructive choices by building self-esteem and other achievement skills. The summer program collaborates with the Association to Benefit Children’s Echo Park Summer Program, to give girls (and their counselors) a respite from the pool and arts-n-crafts. Many teenagers come every afternoon for two hours, receiving intensive dance training in different styles, and developing friendships and belonging.

One class explored self identity from more angles than dance alone. The “Who Am I?” curriculum utilizes drama exercises, journaling, spoken word, poetry, video portraits, photo portraits, and discussion to further explore the girls’ self image. This summer the focus was on images of women in hip hop lyrics and videos. The intention of the instructors was to spark ideas of ways the girls could protect themselves from absorbing and believing the messages – that women are for sex alone, that money is the most important thing, that women can be bought, that men can talk to women a certain way. Remarkably the girls were ready to take it one step further and change the way things are now! They have created a video with their thoughts as voice over to send to the music video t.v. stations.

Groove With Me, Inc., founded in 1996 by Abigail Rosin, began with two students at Loisaida, Inc., a community center on the Lower East Side. In 2001 it acquired its own dance studio in Spanish Harlem and quadrupled to serve 160 children. With a social worker Program Director at the helm today it serves 220 girls a year with 21 volunteer teachers.

This fall Groove With Me will be honored by The Harlequin More Than Words Award, a segment on CBS’s new show Real Simple, and a workshop in the studio by Savion Glover.

For more information, visit www.groovewithme.org or contact Abigail Rosin at 917-514-7171.

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To quote Jeremy Pepper "I'm semi famous now, in a blog"

http://www.allbusiness.com/blog/ThePRBlog/4167/002974.html

An exerpt:

"Now, I am biased toward The Gift List - I have used it, and it has proven its worth to me by landing articles in publications I would have not likely had found, or thought of, to pitch clients and clients' products. But, I also knew of a colleague who had been contemplating using The Gift List and I kept bugging her telling her that she needed to get it.

So, I pinged Katherine Rosin from Kampfire PR. Rosin specializes in entertainment publicity and consumer goods - and was looking at The Gift List for one of her clients.

Via an IM interview the other day ...

Me: you're the one that got gift list media, right?
Rosin: yes
Me: you liking it?
Rosin: yes, it’s fabulous!
Me: cool
Rosin: the list is a great help...as there are some deluxe consumer interest items on there - those who want high end products.

Plus, in talking with Rosin today - after using The Gift List for a week - she's landed a hit in a top women's health publication."

Thanks Jeremy!

In addition, some PR brags:

OUR NAME IS MUD:

August Gift Basket Review: The cover had our thankful oval platter.

August Giftware News Baby & Kids: Reasons to Party featured our DIY Birthday Plate

Gift & Dec Newswire:

Our Name Is Mud Sells Retail Stores
New York — Ceramic and pottery wholesaler Our Name is Mud sold three of its Manhattan-based, do-it-yourself pottery stores to the private equity firm Goode Partners. Our Name Is Mud owners Lorrie and Kip Veasey, and partner John Nelson, will concentrate on the wholesale market while maintaining the company’s fourth retail location, at Grand Central Terminal, in order to test consumer reaction to new product. Launched in 1995, the retail outlets, while successful, were “very customer intensive,” according to Kip Veasey. “We didn’t see doing it long-term.” Veasey also noted that Goode Partners sees an opportunity investing in craft, paint-your-own pottery, and other, mostly independent, children’s entertainment outlets. Goode Partners previously invested in The Children’s Place clothing stores and Tommy Bahama, before taking them public.

News from my client OUR NAME IS MUD

Media Alert: Corporate News From Our Name Is Mud

For Immediate Release:
August 1, 2005

OUR NAME IS MUD is pleased to announce the acquisition of their do-it-yourself contemporary pottery studios by Goode Partners. The stores allow customers the opportunity to create their own functional ceramics and regularly host children’s birthday parties, corporate teambuilding events, adult nights and other organized outings. OUR NAME IS MUD caters primarily to children ages five and up and their parents, as well as artistic adults.

OUR NAME IS MUD launched its flagship store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in 1995. Based upon its overwhelming success, the company quickly expanded to include three additional retail outlets. OUR NAME IS MUD became an innovator in this $400 million dollar industry and served as a model for other contemporary pottery studios throughout the country.

OUR NAME IS MUD will retain its name and its Grand Central Terminal gallery location, which the company will continue to use as a testing ground for new product. Former owners Lorrie & Kip Veasey, and partner John Nelsen, look forward to the opportunity this provides for growth and expansion of their wholesale line of finished ceramics.

For More Information: Please conact Katie Rosin, Director of Media Relations, OUR NAME IS MUD, 212-849-8210 or katie@ournameismud.com