Kansas City Charity Events - 2010 Charity Fundraisers in Kansas City

Kansas City Charity Events - 2010 Fundraisers

Kansas City is known for having some of the biggest and brightest charity fundraisers in the nation, but if you're not paying attention you might miss them. That's why we at Kansas City News dot pro are going to give you the skinny:

Bacchus Black Ball

Charity - The Bacchus Foundation
Event Location - The Madrid Theatre
Event Date - February 6th, 2010
Attire - Black Tie
Cost - $100 per person - $175 per couple

The 55th Annual Bacchus Ball will be held this year at The Madrid Theatre and will feature live entertainment by Kansas City's favorite 80's band, The Zeros.

Horizon Academy's Bayou Bash

Charity - Horizon Academy Kansas City
Event Location - Starlight Theater
Event Date - Saturday, February 6th, 2010
Attire - New Orleans Mardi Gras Theme
Cost - $115 per ticket (sponsorship available)

Horizon Academy will hold their 6th annual Bayou Bash this year at Starlight Theater. Auction items will include a "Pick Your Destination" vacation, a "Las Vegas, Baby" getaway, and other great items. Entertainment for the event has not yet been announced as Starlight Theater coordinator Lindsey Rood denied Horizen Academy's request for their choice of entertainment.

Code Red 2010 - The Millennial League

Charity - AIDS Service Foundation of Greater Kansas City
Event Location - Madrid Theatre
Event Date - Friday, February 12th, 2010
Attire - Business Casual to Black Tie
Cost - $20 general admission, $75 VIP
Purchase Tickets to Code Red 2010 Event

The Millennial League is targeted toward young business professionals (although the spokeswoman that was just on Fox 4 was around 55 years old) and they support the missions and goals of the AIDS Service Foundation of Greater Kansas City. The Millennial League's charity event is called "Val-O-Ween" and will feature live entertainment from The Zeros.

Sunflower House - Valentine Gala

Charity - Sunflower House
Event Location - Overland Park Sheraton
Event Date - Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Cost - $150 (sponsorship available)

The Sunflower House, a charity group that fights child abuse, will hold it's annual Valentine Gala this year featuring a V.I.P. cocktail hour, fine dining, and dancing to live music provided by Adam Blue Productions.

Children's Mercy Hospital's Red Hot Night

Charity - Children's Mercy Hospital
Event Location - Kansas City Convention Center
Event Date - Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Attire - Black Tie

The focus on this year's charity event is cancer research. Children’s Mercy is working towards achieving COG designation as a Phase I/II Clinical Trial Center within their Experimental Therapeutics Program – a prestigious designation held by fewer than 25 children’s hospitals worldwide.

The Red Ball

Charity - The American Red Cross
Event Location - The Sprint Center, Kansas City
Event Date - Friday, February 26th, 2010
Attire - Black Tie
Cost - $175 per ticket (sponsorship available)

In it's third year, The American Red Cross is set to roll out the red carpet once again this year for The Red Ball. This year, the event will feature a catered dinner from Levy Restaurants and entertainment from Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. The event is set in a beautifully decorated Sprint Center, complete with red cross lights in the front windows of the massive event space.

Forks and Corks for Harvesters

Charity - Harvesters
Event Location - Kansas City Convention Center
Event Date - April 29th, 2010
Attire - Business Casual

The 14th annual Forks and Corks will assemble this year at the Kansas City Convention Center and will feature several top Kansas City Restaurants serving their best cuisine, a silent auction and a delightful wine selection and tasting.

Wayside Waifs - Fur Ball 2010

Charity - Wayside Waifs
Event Location - Overland Park Convention Center
Event Date - May 8th, 2010
Attire - Formal / Business Casual

Kansas City's favorite charity and charity event, Wayside Waifs annual FurBall will be held this year at The Overland Park Convention Center and will feature a live auction, and entertainment provided by Adam Blue Productions.

Jazzoo 2010

Charity - The Kansas City Zoo
Event Location - The Kansas City Zoo
Event Date - June 4th, 2010
Attire - Creative Black Tie

Kansas City's most creative and outrageous charity event has and always will be Jazzoo. Jazzoo 2010 will be no exception as there will be dozens of Kansas City's finest restaurants on site at The Kansas City Zoo, featuring their best cuisine. Party right along side the animals as the entire zoo will be flowing with festively dressed party goers.

This year's entertainment has not yet been announced, but there are usually at least 3 different live bands playing all night long at different locations around the zoo grounds.

For more info visit Kansas City Charity Events

Jobs in Kansas City - Tips for landing a good job in Kansas City

Jobs in Kansas City are very attainable if you apply yourself and take the necessary steps to land one.

One path that I found successful was to get signed on with a Temporary Agency. There are several in the Kansas City area including Kelly Services, probably one of the oldest and trusted temporary agencies in the country. Kelly has many Kansas City jobs available for applicants with the right qualifications. What I really liked about Kelly Services (and I think that most temp services offer this) was the training service. There are several different computer programs out there that are useful to employers, and the more of these programs you can master, the more jobs you are qualified for. Programs that are useful are Microsoft Office products, Adobe products, and specialized software programs that may relate to your area of job expertise. Kelly will test you on the various computer programs to see how well you know each program, however the cool thing is that if you are struggling on any of the programs they have training programs that will help you to score better on their tests.

College - if you went to college then you probably already have an area of expertise and may be familiar with and can pigeon hole your job opportunities accordingly. For instance if you have college experience in accounting, you might want to go directly to Accountemps in Kansas City to begin your journey. If you did not attend college do not lose hope, you can easily learn any or all of the computer programs required to land any of the great Kansas City jobs that are out there waiting for you. Check in to a temporary agency and start training. I would just ask them outright what jobs are the most readily available and just train towards getting that job. A lot of times it doesn't matter where you start in a company, if you can get a job a good company you can work your way laterally to another department within the company and eventually move up in that department. For instance, I started in the Claims department of a Kansas City health care company and I eventually gained the experience necessary to move to the more lucrative Accounting department. For the record, my college experience didn't really have much to do with my entry into the company, nor my success within the company later on.

The Bottom Line
Go to a temporary agency, score well on their placement tests, get sent out on temporary job assignments, find a company on an assignment that you like, let them know that you are interested in becoming a permanent employee, watch the available job listings within that company and apply for a permanent job. If you have done well as a temporary employee then odds are you will be hired on as a permanent employee. At that time you can look for opportunities within the company to move up, etc.

The temporary agency is a great way to start because they are basically looking for jobs for you, and they have better access to the good jobs because the big companies in Kansas City use temporary agencies constantly to fill positions. The other major advantage to starting out in a temporary agency is that they will send you out to work (temporarily, of course) at several different companies, and you get a chance to look at the company from the inside, making it easy to find a company that you would like to work for.

This is how I landed a great job in Kansas City, I hope this was helpful to any of you that are out there struggling to land one of the wonderful Kansas City jobs that are out there waiting for you right now! Good luck on the job hunt.

Apple iPad Tablet - Apple CEO Steve Jobs presents the new iPad

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the all new Apple iPad Tablet today with a live demonstration in California today. Our overall reaction, "it's O.K." - nothing really spectacular about it, it's basically a giant iPhone.

Good things about the new Apple iPad:

It is small, and FLAT. This thing is as flat as they get at 1/2 an inch thick and weighs 1.5 pounds.

It has all of the apps that Apple users are used to from their iBooks and iPhones.

It is great for reading books, magazines and newspapers. According to the Apple iPad Tablet demo, the book section is really cool with a virtual video bookshelf compliments of Amazon, which shows your books on the shelf as if at home in your library. Steve Jobs also demoed the iPad by showing his ease of navigation through today's New York Times.

Cost - the Apple iPad is surprisingly affordable at $499. That's a shocker - considering it came from "we're so proud of our junk" Apple Computers.

Bad things about the new Apple iPad:

So what, it's a giant iPhone! It doesn't fit in your pocket, and it doesn't have the nice large screen of your iBook or PC laptop.

No USB port - uh, this is a major oversight - I would think that a USB port would be nice.

Did not live up to the hype. The hype, in the case of the Apple iPad tablet, was much larger than the product itself. Great marketing tactic, however, you gotta give 'em that. They promised that it would revolutionize and change everything - but all it really revolutionized was the current electronic book-reading devices such as the Kindle by Amazon.

Apple - New Gadget to be announced today at 12 noon

Apple is scheduled to unveil their latest gadget which, until now, has been kept secret.

Market experts are guessing that Apple Computer's new product will be some sort of a small 10 inch portable device that will serve as a laptop, phone, media player, and will probably hold a few surprises as well.

The Apple product is said to be unique in that it will be extremely thin.

We will find out at 12 noon!

Kansas City Police - KCPD's relationship with Kansas City Detectives

Kansas City police and their relationship with Kansas City detectives

Does someone have to be murdered in Kansas City in order for the Kansas City police to turn over any pertinant crime details to the Kansas City detectives? After living here for most of 30 years, my friends and I have been the victims of countless crimes. No big deal for the most part, the occasional robbery, car theft, assault, etc.

Here's the thing:

The police show up, write up a report, and then split.

Is it no longer the job of the Kansas City police department to INVESTIGATE crimes? I mean seriously, I've had fingerprints, shoe prints, tire prints, friggin DNA samples, everything in the book on those who have broken into my house or car and the police just IGNORE this and dismiss the evidence completely.

Ok, so my question is, what level of severity does a crime have to be before the Kansas City police turn over a crime to the Kansas City detectives? Do the KCPD detectives only investigate murders? I understand that the "beat cops" that are on patrol are mostly simpletons and cannot initiate an investigation, but can they at least turn the facts over to the detectives?

A good policeman friend of mine once told me that if I'm ever robbed while at home to "shoot him and drag him in front of your front door". I think that may be my only recourse. Good advice :)