A SPUR of the moment idea has netted an award and a little cash for the Heartlinks Grief Center at Family Hospice in Belleville.
Kris Grawitch, program coordinator for Heartlinks, said the video explaining the grief center was selected as the winner of the week on the GoodSearch site on the Internet.
GoodSearch is an online search engine that donates a penny a search to registered charities.
The Heartlinks Grief Center at Family Hospice, 5110 W. Main St. in Belleville, is a help group for children and other family members who have had relatives die. The group meets the first Monday night of the month and also has a group activity once a month.
Grawitch said the center found out about the contest for nonprofits on GoodSearch with just a couple of weeks left in it.
"We met on Monday and said we were making the video on Saturday," she said. "Dave Edgar brought in all this equipment and really guided us. He edited it in one day and put it on the site."
Being a weekly winner means they are featured on the search site and will receive a $100 prize.
Grawitch said that Heartlinks encourages its supporters to register at the site www.goodsearch.com. Then every time someone who is registered as a Heartlinks supporter uses the search engine, it contributes a penny to the group. It works the same way for other groups as well.
A penny doesn't sound like much, but some groups can get thousands of dollars during a year. Heartlinks pulled in $60 last year, and with the winning video, things are looking up this year.
Grawitch said she is awed at how well the video turned out.
"It was amazing to watch the kids cheer each other on as one nervous child after another took their turn in front of the camera," she said. "I think the adult volunteers were even more nervous. The room would get still when each child said who it was that they loved who had died."
The video was edited into a series of rapid cutaways of volunteers, children and parents so the message comes from many mouths.
To see the video, you can go to www.Youtube.comand search for Heartlinks or go to www.bnd.com.
Wally Spiers' column runs five days a week. Have a column idea? Call Wally at 239-2506 or (800) 642-3878; or e-mail: wspiers@bnd.com
