Volunteer Gear, a local e-tailer, does more than sell T-shirts. It runs an interactive Web site that lets volunteers pass along their good deeds and ask others to do likewise.

“I am a strong believer in paying it forward,” says Jennifer Lee, an Arlington Heights native who works as director of operations for the Palatine-based company. “If everyone could lend a helping hand, that’s what life is about.”

Here’s how it works: When a customer buys a $19.95 T-shirt online at Volunteer Gear.com or in a handful of local boutiques where the T-shirts are sold, the T-shirt comes with a set of dog tags with a single serial number engraved on both tags. The line of 23 T-shirts says “volunteer” on the back and has motivational sayings on the front, such as “Don’t Be a Life Potato” and “I Am the Best Alternative Energy Source.”

The buyer registers his dog-tag number on the VolunteerGear.com site, along with his or her volunteer deed. The volunteer answers questions about what he or she did and who he helped. Every serial number registered on the site is placed on Google Maps so that volunteers can watch a chain of good deeds spread geographically. The volunteer is encouraged to give the second dog tag to a friend or relative and ask that person to carry on the good deed-doing. Each time the chain is updated, the original tag holders receive e-mail updates. Volunteers may write comments on each volunteer post, much like Facebook or MySpace. The next step in interactivity will be enabling people to personalize their T-shirts and allowing young designers to create cause-based T-shirt designs.

“We think this is a great mechanism for high school students who can show colleges the kinds of volunteer work and community work they’ve done, or for churches who want to get young people involved,” said Lee, who lives in Algonquin. “One of our first sales was to a church group in Michigan for the children’s ministry unit.”

“My family is doing Salvation Army bell-ringing a couple times as part of our volunteering,” Lee said. “My younger daughter, Stephanie, 13, can register her dog tag online, talk about her experience and pass the second tag on to one of her girlfriends asking if she can help someone too.” Lee’s other children are Tyler, 16, and Alex, 7.

“The goal is to stimulate acts of kindness and doing things for others,” said Lee, who gained experience in wholesaling and online retailing when she ran her own company for six years that sold collegiate-licensed sandals, handbags and giftware.

Lee, who holds a degree in finance with a concentration in risk management from the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, had previously had a career as an insurance underwriter and with a consulting firm that handled risk management for a major corporation. Though she rose to a vice president’s rank in her 20s, she left the work force when her second child was 2½ years old to focus on being a mom. She needed a more stable income than her collegiate-gift company allowed, and she found the answer with the Pepper Group, a marketing agency based in Palatine, and its owner, Tim Padgett. Padgett is the primary shareholder of Volunteer Gear and asked Lee to become its operations director.

Volunteer Gear has attracted the attention of corporations and intends to work with their employee volunteers.

“We want to create a group chain that will be branded with the company’s image, track how many people are involved in the volunteer efforts, how many hours they volunteered, and whether and how much money was raised,” Lee said. “Each employee will start his own volunteer chain, and that will feed into the group chain.”

Though the effort will undoubtedly help corporations brag about their social responsibility, the chain still relies on the social aspect of passing along a dog tag and getting more people involved.

“I’ve started promoting the idea to the National Football League and to the Major League Baseball organizations,” Lee said.

As Posted on Chicago SunTimes

Our lives these days are go, go, go, which can leave us running on empty. When we eat outside the home, “portions go up and nutrition goes down,” says Kelly D. Brownell, director of The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. Still, experts say that, with planning, it’s possible to eat on the go and stay healthy. Here’s how.

At The Office

A whopping 75% of office workers eat at their desks two or three times a week, according to the American Dietetic Association. If you do, prepare something healthy and satisfying in advance. Bring in nutritious snacks as well, for energy and to stave off hunger. Otherwise, it’s too easy to help yourself to whatever is available. A study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that secretaries whose candy dishes were close at hand ate more than twice as many chocolates as those whose dishes were six feet away.

• Stock up the office fridge, suggests dietitian Elisa Zied. Among the foods she recommends: low-fat yogurt or cheese paired with whole-grain crackers; hummus or natural peanut or almond butter; raw vegetables and a dip such as salsa, which is fat-free.
• Prepare protein-packed foods that promote a feeling of satiety. Make sandwiches or salads with canned tuna or salmon, lean meats or skinless turkey.
• Use the microwave, if there is one, to heat up instant oatmeal for breakfast. Foods with a high water content—such as broth, an apple or a salad—are volume-satisfying and a low-calorie way to start your lunch, says Barbara Rolls, a nutrition professor at Penn State University.
• Snack wisely. Instead of candy, why not fill the bowl on your desk with the Japanese soybean snack edamame? “They’re a great source of protein and satisfyingly chewy,” says Dr. Juan Remos of the Miami Institute for Age Management and Intervention.

In The Car

In the rush to get to school, daycare or work, some families end up eating breakfast in the car. “Children get less than a quarter of the protein when they’re eating in transit than they do from a meal at home,” says Cheryl Rock of the University of California’s San Diego School of Medicine. To up the nutrition value, bring fast foods other than the ever-popular candy or chips.

• Choose foods that travel well. Peanut butter sandwiches on pita don’t require refrigeration. Neither, immediately, do most fruits or vegetables.
• Keep fruits and vegetables bite-sized. Studies at the Cornell Food and Brands Lab find that kids are 12% more likely to eat an apple if it’s cut up. Baby carrots and blueberries are ready-to-serve. Other choices: cubes of low-fat cheese, rice cakes, baked whole-grain crackers and miniboxes of rolled oats, shredded wheat or puffed corn cereal. (You also can bag your own.)
• Control portions by using small-sized plastic bags. You’ll feel like you’re getting more to eat.
• Buy takeout selectively. If you have to make a fast-food pit stop, choose grilled over fried foods, chicken over burgers, salad instead of fries or onion rings, and milk and water in place of shakes.

At The Movies

The distraction of the film and the munching sounds of others in the theater lead to mindless eating. A study by Brian Wansink, now executive director of the Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, found that people who were given a large tub of popcorn ate 50% more (almost 200 extra calories) than those given a medium-sized bag. “Worse,” he says, “they were certain they’d eaten no more than those with smaller portions.”

• Know what you’re going to eat ahead of time. Try a small box of raisins, nuts or trail mix for crunch. A lollipop or small latte—sold at some concession stands or smuggled in from a nearby coffee shop—will last well beyond the opening credits.
• Make your own. Research shows that plain popcorn mixed with a few pretzels and—depending on your preference—a seasoning like paprika or hot sauce curbs carb cravings.

Good To Go

• Energy bars. Look for brands high in fiber (at least 4 grams), low in fat and sugar, with 5-10 grams of protein.
• Nuts. Dry-roasted walnuts, cashews and almonds are loaded with protein and healthy fats, as are peanuts.
• Dried fruit. These provide sweetness, fiber and antioxidants.
• Cheese. Small, individually packaged servings of low-fat string cheeses don’t need immediate refrigeration and contain calcium and protein.
• An apple. Easy to store in a desk drawer or to toss into a backpack, apples take the edge off of hunger.

As Posted on Parade

In tough economic times, every little bit helps. Before doing your online shopping, a quick and simple way to save a few dollars is to search for coupon codes. You may have luck finding online coupon codes through your preferred store’s email newsletter or on a website dedicated to consolidating discount information and coupons.

Step 1

Join an online retailer’s website Checking your store of choice is the best place to start. Many shopping websites will periodically send coupons and special offers to their members. Specialty stores like AllPosters.com and Victoria’s Secret along with all-purpose retailers like eBay will sometimes send online coupon codes or other news on discounts.

Step 2

CurrentCodes.com The CurrentCodes.com website has one of t he most comprehensive collections of free online coupon codes available. From their home page, you can search for online coupon codes by the name of the store or by product category. Their catalog lists available online coupon codes and special offers for thousands of online stores ranging from 1 Stop Florists to zZounds.com music store.

Step 3

CoolSavings.com CoolSavings.com is similar to CurrentCodes.com, with the main difference being that CoolSavings also has printable coupons for offline shopping. Under the “online coupons” tab, you can search for coupons by category or store name. This site is not the most user-friendly, but if you can get past the Columbia House-style offers and popup windows, it has a nice selection of online coupon codes.

Step 4

If all else fails, run a quick search for the name of the store or product you are interested in along with the words coupon, coupon codes, or offer codes. While not every store will offer coupon codes, many have offers kicking around the internet targeted to drawing in new customers or keeping old ones coming back.

As Posted on EHow

Go ahead. Embrace your inner tightwad.

1. Free video games

If you’re looking for games for the kids — or an excuse to act like a kid yourself — head to Kongregate, PopCap Games, Pogo.com and OnlineFlashGames for thousands of free online and downloadable games of all types.

For educational or just-for-fun games suited to young kids, check out PBS Kids, Discovery Kids, NickJr.com and Scholastic.com.

2. Free birthday goodies

A slew of businesses will give you prime freebies on your birthday that almost make getting older worth it. For instance, anyone can get free admission to Disneyland or Disney World in 2009. Join the birthday club at Toys R Us and your child (younger than 10) will get a free toy or gift card every year.

If you sign up in advance to join the club at your favorite eatery, you could score free food on your birthday. For example, you can get a free meal at Famous Dave’s BBQ and free ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery and Baskin Robbins. Search the Web for “birthday freebies,” then call your local restaurants to ask whether they participate in the deal. For more, see “20 freebies for your birthday.”

3. Free shipping

Special delivery! Some retailers still offer free shipping on every order, including Alyssa Basket Designs (special-occasion gifts), Blue Nile (jewelry), Piperlime (shoes), Shopbop.com (clothes) and Zappos.com (shoes). 

If you want to start a lively debate with your colleagues, just say one word: Facebook. You’re likely to hear many different arguments and at some point someone will declare that if students would spend less time on Facebook and other social networking sites they’d get better grades. Maybe, maybe not.

New research from the University of New Hampshire finds that students who heavily engage in social networking do just as well academically as students who are less interested in keeping in touch with the medium.

A summary of “Social Networking Usage and Grades Among College Students” is available for download here.

“The study indicates that social media is being integrated with rather than interfering with students’ academic lives,” said UNH adjunct professor Chuck Martin, whose marketing research class conducted the study. “College students have grown up with social networks, and the study shows they are now simply part of how students interact with each other with no apparent impact on grades.”

Students at the UNH Whittemore School of Business surveyed 1,127 UNH students from a range of majors. The research shows that there is no correlation between the amount of time students spend using social media and their grades. Grades followed similar distributions for all colleges, with the majority of students having A’s and B’s.

Researchers defined light users of social media as usage fewer than 31 minutes per day. Heavy usage was defined as usage exceeding 61 minutes per day. Researchers defined high grades as A’s and A’s and B’s, and lower grades as B’s and lower. For the purpose of the study, social media was defined as Facebook, YouTube, blogs, Twitter, MySpace or LinkedIn.

Sixty-three percent of heavy users received high grades, compared to 65 percent of light users. Researchers found similar results with lower grades. While 37 percent of heavy users of social media received what were defined as lower grades, 35 percent of light users received fell into that same category.

Ninety-six percent of UNH students use Facebook
The study also showed that Facebook and YouTube are the most popular social media platforms with college students. An astounding 96 percent of students said they use Facebook on a typical day and 84 percent use YouTube. Only 20 percent said they use blogs, 14 percent use Twitter, 12 percent use MySpace and 10 percent use LinkedIn.

In addition, 43 percent of those surveyed said they have increased their usage of social media from a year ago, eight percent of them significantly. Thirty-nine percent of students said they have not changed their use of social media, while 18 percent said their use has decreased, including three percent who said it had significantly decreased.

The majority of students said they use social networks for social reasons (89 percent) and entertainment (79 percent). About a quarter of students said they use social media for educational reasons (26 percent), and 16 percent for professional reasons.

As Posted on Faculty Focus