First Friday Fabulousness!

We are so unbe­liev­ably excited to tell you about May First Friday!

Save the date : May 2, 2014

First, we will be offering a Clayton Gray Home Mother’s Day reg­istry.  Come in Friday night, shop and create your list. Share with your spe­cial someone that you have cre­ated a reg­istry, or we can con­tact them for you. When they come in to shop from the reg­istry, they will receive a spe­cial dis­count. We have so many won­derful NEW items to see and ADD to your list!

Next, the ever pop­ular celeb bar­tender, Nick Peterson will be serving up light and lovely Hibiscus Mar­gar­itas in honor of Cinco de Mayo. Yum!

Give Day Tampa Bay is May 6th. Per­haps you have heard of this? A “little” event that has been locally pro­moted by the likes of, oh.…say, Kevin Bacon and Tim Gunn?! Give Day Tampa Bay is a big, bold oppor­tu­nity for our com­mu­nity.  A part­ner­ship between the Com­mu­nity Foun­da­tion of Tampa Bay, Florida Next Foun­da­tion, and local non­profits, hun­dreds (if not thou­sands) of donors from every neigh­bor­hood in our com­mu­nity will come together on a single day to raise sig­nif­i­cant funds for local needs.  Local impact with a national twist.  Be a part of the largest giving event in his­tory.  Tampa is joining more than 100 com­mu­ni­ties across the country to raise mil­lions of dol­lars for the greater good—all on a single day (May 6th) through Give Local America.  Everyone can be a phil­an­thropist.  Give Day Tampa Bay is asking every person in the com­mu­nity to get behind this effort. Large and small gifts will com­bine for big impact.  It’s time to think big. It’s time to be bold. A single day.  Lasting impact.  Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Give Day Tampa Bay will be on hand to answer any ques­tions that you may have about the day and how you can help.  You def­i­nitely want to be a part of this exciting his­tory making event!

Local hero spot­light : Come and meet one of the strongest, toughest and most beau­tiful women in Tampa.  Named one of the Tampa Busi­ness Jour­nals 2012 Up & Comers and a member of the Board of Direc­tors for High Hopes in High Heels, she is des­tined for great­ness and to do good.  Michelle Boyd DeJong is a young woman with a pur­pose and a plan.  On March 14, 2014, Michelle’s whirl­wind “take life by the horns” lifestyle and ambi­tions came to a screeching halt.  Diag­nosed with an inop­er­able AA3 brain tumor, Anaplastic Astroc­toma, life sud­denly moved in slow motion.  Instead of drowning in the sor­rows of this diag­nosis, Michelle did what she does best, set out to turn this sit­u­a­tion into some­thing pos­i­tive and as a way to give back…to #bethe­good.  Together, the new­lywed duo of Ryan and Michelle DeJong cre­ated a Miles For Mof­fitt race team.  This is an annual race ded­i­cated to raising funds for research at the Mof­fitt Cancer Center. Ryan and Michelle have logged a “few” miles together throughout their dating and mar­ried life, so to use their “sport” to ben­efit the place where Michelle is receiving treatment…it seemed only fit­ting that this was how she would #bethe­good.  We will share more about Michelle’s story later in the week. If you are in the Tampa area, you can watch a per­sonal inter­view with Michelle on WFLA News Channel 8 — Tuesday, April 29th at 6 and 11pm. Come meet Michelle and Ryan at First Friday and learn more about joining and sup­porting their Miles For Mof­fitt team — Too Inspired by What’s Tran­spired. Michelle also has a Face­book author page that you can follow in addi­tion to her web­page On March 14. Michelle is truly an inspi­ra­tion to us all. #bethegood .

Michael Trefry of michaelJon Pho­tog­raphy will be on hand to pho­to­graph our event.  Michael is a local pho­tog­ra­pher who has an amazing artistic eye and flare.  Spe­cial­izing in por­traits and event pho­tog­raphy, his Face­book page and web­site are full of amazing exam­ples of his work.  Check out his “People of Tampa Bay” sec­tion of his web­site for the amazing pho­tographs he has cap­tured of strangers (and some friends) in their nat­ural “habitat”.  His albums on Face­book are also incred­ible.  Michael has a way of pre­serving the nat­ural love and beauty seen in people in every day life.  We are thrilled to have Michael at First Friday to doc­u­ment what will be a most amazing evening.

Look for­ward to seeing you all this Friday, May 2nd!