Farmington Hills

Goodwill Industries, teen team up for fundraiser

By David Wallace
C & G Staff Writer

» click to enlarge « Photo by David Wallace Mark Lane of Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit, Miss Farmington second runner-up Grace Newlin and Paula Lankin of Scentsy show some of the memorabilia and products that will be available at Boo-ling for Jobs at Drakeshire Lanes Oct. 26. The organizers met at the bowling alley Aug. 15 to start raising interest in the event. Photo by David Wallace Mark Lane of Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit, Miss Farmington second runner-up Grace Newlin and Paula Lankin of Scentsy show some of the memorabilia and products that will be available at Boo-ling for Jobs at Drakeshire Lanes Oct. 26. The organizers met at the bowling alley Aug. 15 to start raising interest in the event.

FARMINGTON HILLS — Miss Farmington and each member of her court help put on a fundraiser at Drakeshire Lanes sometime during their year in the spotlight.

Second runner-up Grace Newlin will go first with one to support Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit 7-11 p.m. Oct. 26.

“We did a lot of donating during school and church, so that’s why I chose this as my charity,” said Newlin.

The fundraisers are among the reasons teens join the Miss Farmington pageant.

“I really wanted to be part of the community and support a lot of the charities that I really like,” said Newlin.

“Goodwill is going to do another of our Bowling for Jobs events. We’re going to call it Boo-ling for Jobs, since it’s around Halloween,” said Mark Lane, public relations and special events director for Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit.

“We put people in employment challenges back to work,” said Lane. “That’s our mission, and we’ve had a long history doing events like this. Not only does it promote what the biggest problem is in this economy right now — jobs — but it helps get our message out there.”

Goodwill Industries has a number of programs to give people useful job skills. They even operate a Ben and Jerry’s PartnerShop that teaches job skills to at-risk teens.

“In the last year, we touched over 20,000 individuals in southeastern Michigan, and we put about 1,250 people back into full paying jobs,” said Lane.

Lane, Newlin, and Paula Lankin, who will sell Scentsy products during the fundraiser and donate a percentage to Goodwill Industries, gathered with Geno Grabinski of Drakeshire Lanes Aug. 16 to start drumming up interest.

Grabinski also serves on the Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit Board of Directors.

“It’s what it’s all about: keeping businesses in Michigan and putting people back to work,” said Grabinski.

The event will cost $20 for three games of bowling, shoe rental, pizza and pop. In addition to the crafters and Miss Farmington and her court, the event will offer raffles and a silent auction. Grabinski said the bowling alley’s billiards area likely will be filled with items to win.

Lane expects to have a page dedicated to the event at www.goodwilldetroit.org in the next month for those interested in bowling, and it’s not too soon for anyone interested in sponsorship to contact him at mlane@ goodwilldetroit.org.

Newlin said she will help spread the word through her friends, and they gathered many business cards during the Founders Festival to find crafters who might want to return for Boo-ling for Jobs.

Goodwill Industries is returning to the donated ­­goods business that people once associated with it. There were no local Goodwill stores for more than a decade.

“We opened our first one in Canton in 2010 in December, and we’ll be opening up our second store in Dearborn on Sept. 8. So we are getting back into the donated goods business,” said Lane. “We call ourselves a social enterprise. We create the businesses to create the jobs.”

You can reach C & G Staff Writer David Wallace at dwallace@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1053.