By C Niemiec

As a member of the Quicken Loans/Rock Financial  Community Relations team, crazy tasks come my way everyday….I’ve done everything from climbing through mounds of storage boxes to planning a trip to Cleveland so we could build a playground for schoolkids in one day – with the help of a bunch of teammates, of course!  But what I was asked to do a couple weeks ago may have been my most challenging task thus far…..I was entered into a Pistons trivia contest with questions dating back to the 1950s! 

By W Kemp

For several years Rock Financial/Quicken Loans has been involved with Junior Achievement (JA).  We started our relationship with JA by partnering to build the Rock Financial Junior Achievement Finance Park in Detroit. It’s wonderful place where students can learn about personal finance and budgeting, something that is not taught on a regular basis in schools.

Well, that was some background about how we started with JA but they also have another program we enjoy being a part of, their job shadowing program which brings high school juniors and seniors to companies to shadow for a day. This is the second year that Quicken Loans has participated in the job shadowing program, and I gotta tell you, everyone has a great time with this.

By W Kemp

As children and even as adults we enjoy sitting back and letting our minds wonder to a wonderful fantasy world filled with wishes and dreams. As adults, we sometime want to be the whimsical Fairy Godmother or Godfather or maybe even Gilda the Good Witch from the Wizard of Oz granting wishes and making dreams come true.

I have to commend the work that Dennis Sampier from the Detroit Pistons and his community relations team for putting together the Make-A-Wish telethon in about 45 days. It started with a call asking me if we were in…can we (Quicken Loans) make wishes come true for two wonderful little girls who were dreaming of going to Quicken Loans with their families. How could I say no?

By C Linder

This past weekend I had the pleasure of volunteering my time with my fellow Quicken Loans/Rock Financial/Title Source team members at the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The event was the Maple Fest which was a two-day kids event put on by the center, and is run primarily by volunteers. Sometimes it is so easy to get caught up in the demands of everyday life and it feels great to volunteer your time to help others in need to bring you back down to earth. This is what I was seeking through this opportunity- and it also helped that I am a complete science nerd.

I was somewhat disappointed that it happened to be yet another freezing, windy, snowy day in Michigan because some of the kids were going to go outside to participate in activities- and I unfortunately was missing gloves and a hat. This prevented me from being able to volunteer outside, which was my original plan. I thought it was inspiring, however, that they still took groups of kids outside to learn about making maple syrup and tapping it from the trees.

My Quicken Loans corporate email greeted me with an invitation to an event – the annual Keith Hamm Foundation fund raiser. Do you know Keith Hamm? I don’t. But, I know Mark Miller, the person who sent the email, and so I read on.

It’s so easy at this point, when reading any email, work or home, to simply delete it and move on. But, I’d like to challenge you to ask a few questions: Who is Keith Hamm? Why is he important? Who is Mark Miller? Why is he doing this? If you take the time to get the story, you just might find a connection. And that connection may surprise you!

By M. Dunklee

Quicken Loans/Rock Financial, the Detroit Pistons and the Detroit Shock pulled into the final stop of our “Know Your Black History” tour on February 25. For the second year in a row, we ended the tour in Flint, Mich., inviting several area high schools to come, be educated, be entertained, support their respective classmates, and, for one lucky student, win a $1,000 scholarship, courtesy of Quicken Loans/Rock Financial.

The goal of the tour is to educate the students about the tragic story of slavery, the quest for freedom and equality, and the perseverance and amazing contributions of great African Americans throughout their tumultuous journey through history. But those of us who participated in the tour as competition judges received a valuable education as well.

Let me come clean with the facts: I’m a white male, raised in a middle class, mostly white suburb by white parents raised in middle class, almost entirely white suburbs.

Have you ever had one of those projects that was so challenging you just slipped it to the back burner?

Well, that is how it was for me trying to schedule a volunteer event for our Arizona team all the way from Michigan! Until one day I said "ENOUGH"! My day was committed to scheduling a Community DIFF volunteer opportunity in Arizona and by the end of the week I had two volunteer dates on the books and I am determined to get more!

The “Know Your Black History Tour” is something that the Rock Financial/Quicken Loans Community DIFF team looks forward to every year. For the past three years, we have sponsored the month-long tour, which provides high school students an opportunity to win a $1,000 college scholarship by expressing what “black history” means to them via artistic expression. I just joined the team about two years ago, so this is my 2nd year with the tour. And though I have been to more that eight different tour stops, visiting more than 30 students who compete for the scholarship, I am still blown away every single time we visit a school.

Part of being the DIFF in the community is recognizing the great ideas of others.  Today, we want to give props to Colgate-Palmolive and the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation for their ongoing “Show the Love” campaign.

Show the Love centers on Black History Month and aims to educate people on the dangers of sickle cell anemia, a blood condition that affects 1 in every 500 African-American babies.

What makes the campaign so great is that not only is the site an amazing resource for information on sickle cell, but they are also holding an online contest for what they are calling a hospital ‘fun center.’  The fun centers contain a flat-panel TV, DVD player and a Nintendo Wii on a portable cart that can be wheeled to a sick child’s bedside for hours of playing – and most importantly, taking their mind off their illness. 

Several large children’s hospitals are in the running for the fun center, but I am excited to see my hometown hospital - Children's Hospital of Michigan –currently running second.  As a kid, I spent more than my fair share of time in the hospital, and I can tell you I sure wish they had these when I was in there. 

Be sure to check out the site, and definitely support Children's Hospital of Michigan!! Remember, you can vote daily, and all voting ends on February 29. 

A Emerson

It is hard to believe we kicked off the third Rock Financial Detroit Pistons’ Black History Tour. Each year it is harder and harder to choose a winner, the kids do an excellent job on presenting what Black History means to them. And I gotta say, we (the judges) love it.

On Tuesday, February 5 a group of us came together to listen and watch 5 students from 5 different Detroit high schools compete for a $1,000 scholarship and a Detroit Piston Fathead. We heard raps, poems, and essays. We had one young lady perform a dance to express what Black History meant to her.

The students have three minutes to present. We went back and forth for a while before we decided…it was not easy. The upside is that all of the participants receive a $100 Visa gift card for participating. No one goes home empty handed.

There are a few people that think the competition is just for African American students, but that is not true. We have had presenters from all backgrounds and races, and yes, we have had some winners that are not African American. This to me depicts the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr., celebrating our differences and respecting one another as equals.

There is always something new to learn and Patrick McInnis, Brian Stevenson and Rick Mahorn gave all of the students sound advice that I hope they will follow throughout their life. Thank you Patrick, Brian and Rick for an excellent job and for being a part 2008 Black History tour.

Watch out Romulus, we are headed your way on Thursday, February 14 to hear what you have to say…

Did you know? Black History Fact – Detroit inventor Elijah McCoy (1843-1923) invented the first practical automatic lubrication cup for steam engines. There were many lubricator cups, but McCoy’s was considered the best. Railroad engineers would refer to it as "the real McCoy". Wow, who knew…now that is the Real McCoy!

W Kemp
Community DIFF