I had lunch today at O’Charley’s, one of my favorite restaurants, and was thrilled to see what this local business is doing to raise money and awareness for the Mansion. I experienced first-hand how this successful holiday fund-raising campaign is working.

The young lady who was serving us presented us with an opportunity to help O’Charley’s support Tupelo Children’s Mansion by making a donation of a dollar or more to the Mansion, which I gladly did. I proudly signed my name to a round placard that will be displayed on a wall along with hundreds of others.

I also learned that children are given a special “Hansford” coloring sheet to work on during their meal. As I left the restaurant, I noticed that a number of the coloring sheets had been posted to the wall.

This wonderful partnership with O’Charley’s is just one example of how Burton Gaar, our Director of Corporate Relations, is garnering the support of a number of businesses and various organizations on behalf of this great cause.

Burton shared with me today that the placards and coloring sheets are coded directly into the computer at the restaurant’s corporate headquarters in Nashville, TN. This allows them to easily take the donation as they cash out their meal tickets and also enables us to properly track the donations. 

Burton stated, “This is the launch of what we hope proves to be an incredible campaign for both O'Charley's and the Mansion.  Tom Perry (District Manager), Ray Bentley (General Manager – Tupelo store) and the entire staff have been incredible to work with.  They caught our vision during their recent visit to our campus and have become extremely passionate about their partnership with us. Our plans are to make it a great success here in Tupelo this year and then move to a regional effort next year by expanding to a multi-store participation. By the third year, it is possible that the campaign will go nationwide. There are approximately 250 O'Charley's stores and I look forward to working with them all!”

When our grandsons, Judd and Jake, come to see us for Christmas, I will have to take them to O'Charley's. Judd will have fun coloring the "Hansford" sheet. Who knows, I may even post his artwork on my blog for the whole world to see.