Professional Wellness Month

June is Professional Wellness Month!

Photo Credit: June: Professional Wellness Month-Reboot Your Life

Professional wellness is about promoting a healthy work environment, building relationships among employees, and improving personal work performance. Employers should show they care about each employee’s well-being, encourage less stressful professional practices, and help employees become more efficient.

Exercise at Work

It’s hard to find time to exercise, especially for those of us who work in an office. Exercising at work may seem impossible, but it’s one option for staying fit and keeping your energy up. It takes some creativity, but there are opportunities to exercise at work if you pay attention. All it takes is a little planning and some inspiration to squeeze in a little movement all day long.

 

The Basics

You probably know a few tricks for staying active at work. Taking the stairs when you can, parking further away from the door and walking around the office when you can are good places to start. Beyond that, there are a few other options to keep you moving:

·        Sit on an exercise ball instead of a chair. This will strengthen your abs and back and you’ll work on your posture without even trying.

·        Set an alarm to go off every hour to remind you to stand up and move around. Even if you just swing your arms or take a deep breath, you’ll feel more alert.

·        Use the restroom on another floor and take the stairs

·        Use a pedometer and keep track of how many steps you take. Aim for 6,000 to 10,000 steps a day.

·        Leave something important in your car (your lunch, your briefcase, etc.) so you have to run out to get it (and take the stairs)

·        Deliver documents or messages to co-workers in person rather than by email

·        Go to the mall for lunch and park on the opposite end of the food court. Don’t forget to buy something healthy.

·        Get a headset for your phone so you can move around while you talk.

Be creative. Any movement is better than none, so don’t feel like you have to do sprints all day long. Adding short bouts of exercise throughout the day will help you burn more calories and will also reduce stress so you can easily smile at your boss when she piles more work on you.

Credit to: June is Professional Wellness Month

Let's Talk Lightning

Photo Credit: http://cosmicconvergence.org/?p=1109

Some people think lightning never strikes the same place twice. However, lightning often strikes the same place twice. Reportedly, the Empire State building is struck nearly 25 times a year. It is also believed that lightning only poses a threat when it’s cloudy or raining. The truth is lighting often strike more than three miles outside of a storm and has been known to travel as far as 10-15 miles before striking the ground. Many people are confused by the term “heat lightning” and think it occurs as the result of a very hot summer day. The term “heat lightning” is used to describe lightning from a thunderstorm too far away to be heard. 

For more information, visit http://www.servprolexingtonsc.com/

Educating Kids About Fire

Photo Credit: http://servprograndjunction.blogspot.com/

Have you educated your kids about fire safety? Do you know how to talk about fire safety with your kids? Here are a few tips.

-Keep matches and lighters in a secured drawer or cabinet.

-Have your children tell you when they find matches and lighters.

-Develop a home fire escape plan. Practice it with your children and designate a meeting place outside.

-Supervise young children closely. Do not leave them alone even for short periods of time.

-Take the mystery out of fire by teaching children that fire is a tool, not a toy.

-Teach children the nature of fire. It is FAST, HOT, DARK and DEADLY!

-Demonstrate how to stop, drop to the ground and roll if their clothes catch fire.

-Show children how to crawl low on the floor, below the smoke, to get out of the house and stay out in the case of fire.

-Teach children not to hide from firefighters, but to get out quickly and call for help.

National Rivers Month

June is National Rivers Month!

Photo Credit: National Rivers Month

Did you know that more than 250,000 rivers and streams run throughout America? Together, these waterways flow for nearly 3.6 million miles, providing drinking water to over 65% of Americans. The Outdoor Industry Association reports that nearly 175 million Americans ages six and older participated in outdoor activities on local waterways. Together, they pump more than 86 billion dollars into the economy every year!

But the truth is you can’t put a price tag on a river-especially when illegal dumping, litter, sewage and industrial runoff threaten the communities and ecosystems that depend on them. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than 290 million scrap tires are produced in the United States each year. That’s enough tires to circle the Earth 1.6 times! Unfortunately, many of these tires, along with other unwanted items, are dumped into rivers every year. To give you an idea, National River Cleanup^®volunteers removed more than 36,000 tires from local waterways in 2012 alone.

In honor of National Rivers Month, we’re calling all paddlers, fishermen, outdoor enthusiasts and humans alike to organize or volunteer with National River Cleanup. By participating in a river cleanup, you help preserve these invaluable resources that make life on Earth possible. So what are you waiting for? There’s never been a better time to give back to the rivers that do so much for us!

Credit to: June is National Rivers Month!

Back To School Supply Drive

Drop off location:

Servpro of Cayce/ West Columbia

1831 Pine Street

West Columbia, 29170

Please keep checking our blogs for additional drop off locations.

Back to school supplies  

Backpacks – no rolling backpacks please

Packs of pencils- 12 count pack

Single subject note books

Erasers

Box of colored pencils

Dry erase markers

Glue Sticks

Bottle of Glue

Box of  24 crayons

Plastic folders with pockets- Red, Blue, Green

Composition notebooks

Wide ruled notebook paper

Zipper pencil bags

Kleenex

Spiral note books – wide ruled

Rounded scissors

Washable markers

Highlighters

Folders with pockets and brads

Story: Yarnell Hill Fire

Evacuees are excitedly talking about returning to their homes, now that the latest reports say the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona is 45 percent contained. But as the likelihood of being allowed back onto their property increases, not all survivors are wondering what they will find.

“We climbed up on the roof and it looked like it was a day or two away,” said Karen Patterson, sitting next to her husband, James Bonde, where they had just attended a meeting in the American Red Cross Grand Canyon Chapter shelter at Wickenburg High School.

“First it was black smoke, and then a black, red glow. I was being the optimist, that it wasn’t going to come,” Bonde added.

Patterson even had time to pull brush away from their home, as they watched the fire about two miles west of them.
But the fire changed direction.

“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever had to deal with,” Patterson said, recounting how it seemed like a fireball tornado literally chased them down the mountain. “It was terrifying.”

With their three children, Ethan, 11, Alison, 6 and Ayla, 3, they fled with ash so thick and the heat so intense that they weren’t sure they’d make it.

“I closed my eyes and prayed,” Patterson said. “I prayed and prayed and prayed.”

“We knew our house was already gone,” Bonde said.

But they did make it to safety and Bonde was wrong about their house. It turns out, they explained, that their house wasn’t touched by the fire at all.

“So we’re alive, and regardless of the home being there or not, if I can help anybody out in any way, that’s my main goal now,” Patterson said of her new life’s mission in grateful recognition of their good fortune.

But Ethan, their oldest child, may have beaten her to it.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times published a story about the fire. Mentioned in the story is a drawing Ethan made at the shelter with encouragement from Red Cross disaster mental health workers, which Patterson proudly displays on her cell phone. It is of the mountain their home sits on. Their mountain, with the artistic license of a human-like face, has tears falling from its eyes.

Calling the drawing, “Everything Happens for a Reason,” Ethan has announced that he plans on being a firefighter when he grows up.

He is America’s future – born from the ashes of a devastating fire that took the lives of 19 firefighters on Sunday.is of the mountain their home sits on. Their mountain, with the artistic license of a human-like face, has tears falling from its eyes.

Calling the drawing, “Everything Happens for a Reason,” Ethan has announced that he plans on being a firefighter when he grows up.

He is America’s future – born from the ashes of a devastating fire that took the lives of 19 firefighters on Sunday.

Content Credit: http://newsroom.redcross.org/2013/07/04/story-yarnell-hill-fire/

Lexington Young Professionals Host Free Public Disaster Symposium

Lexington Young Professionals hosted a free public disaster symposium on June 14, 2013 at the Greater Lexington Chamber of Commerce building. Adjutant General Robert Livingston gave the keynote address, offering his experience and knowledge working with the South Carolina National Guard to keep the state safe from natural and manmade emergencies. The General’s tagline for his 2013 educational workshops and presentations has been “Disaster relief begins at home and in the local community. Be Prepared!”

With Hurricane Season beginning on June 1 and Tropical Storm Andrea passing through the Carolinas, it was a vital time for the community to receive planning tips and guidelines by emergency response experts.  The experts prepared residents for disaster by emphasizing safety tips to utilize before, during and after small or catastrophic events.

The event began with opening remarks by Town of Lexington Mayor Randy Halfacre and Town of Lexington Chief of Police Terrence Green. Lee Pitcovich, Founder and former President of Lexington Young Professionals, emceed the event.

Following the keynote address, speaker Derrec Becker, from Emergency Division Management, focused on hurricane safety and evacuation, and reiterated precautions and procedures to utilize during every type of local event.

Dave Seawell, of American Red Cross, provided insight on shelter information and protocol and surviving emergencies with children and pets.

The event concluded with a business emergency preparedness presentation by Tia Williams of SERVPRO of Lexington. With a daunting 60% closure rate for businesses affected by emergencies, The SERVPRO Emergency Ready Plan (ERP) app offers business and property owners a free step by step tutorial and planning system for emergency preparedness. The ERP is available at servpro.com/ready.

About 40 people attended the symposium. Breakfast was sponsored by Chick-fil-a and Flight Deck. Other sponsors included The Greater Lexington Chamber of Commerce, Livingston Insurance and Event Management, LLC.  Plans for a follow up Emergency Preparedness workshop are in the works.

About the Lexington Young Professionals: The Lexington Young Professionals (LYP) is a nonprofit organization of upcoming leaders in the Lexington community seeking to become a positive and progressive influence in the Lexington, SC community through networking opportunities, social interaction, service and involvement. For more information, please visit lexingtonyoungprofessionals.com or follow us on Twitter @theLYP. 


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