Normally, we keep the commentary on our blog related to the microcosm of internet marketing and how it can help your business succeed. Sometimes, however, a cause is too good to pass up mentioning. Esbenshade’s, a garden center and greenhouse located in Litiz, PA - is teaming up with Youth with a Mission International (YWAM) to provide these temporary houses to the homeless in Haiti.

What Are Hoop Houses?

Hoop houses are low cost, easy to assemble greenhouses. To simply explain it, a hoop house is a greenhouse with a plastic roof draped over plastic piping. The hoop houses Esbenshade’s has sent to Haiti are pre-fabricated and customized at the company’s greenhouse.

According to the team at Esbenshade’s, nearly one million temporary homes are needed to shelter the homeless earthquake survivors in Haiti. To help, they have designed and constructed 14- x 16-foot “hoop houses” that can provide a temporary home for a family of up to five.

How Esbenshade’s Is Helping Haiti

Two hundred homes left a Florida port on Monday. When the houses arrived at the port of St. Marc in Haiti, a team of local YWAM personnel and construction volunteers from the Lancaster-area met the shipment. In total, YWAM plans on constructing 100 homes per acre - in total providing about 1,000 homes for Haiti’s homeless.

Esbenshade’s would greatly appreciate any financial contributions from the public to help continue the Hoop Houses for Haiti effort. The cost for one home (including materials and shipping) is around $300. Anyone in the Lancaster-area who is interested in volunteering their time and energy to assemble the hoop house materials in Litiz are also appreciated. Of course, volunteers are also in high demand in Haiti - for hoop house assembly and a variety of other causes.

Anyone looking for more information on Esbenshade’s Hoop Houses for Haiti program should call 717.626.7007 or visit Esbenshades.com.

Tomorrow, December 2, ProspectMX is partnering with the League of Lancaster Bicyclists (LLB) to gather toy donations for a local non-profit group. This blog post was written by Jonathan Bentz - jonathanbentz.gooruze.com.

The League of Lancaster Bicyclists will be hosting a ride in Quarryville, PA to raise awareness for the local toy drive. The world headquarters of ProspectMX will serve as a toy drop-off destination. Good’s Store in Quarryville will also serve as a drop off location.

ProspectMX and the LLB need your help. The local non-profit is around 100 toys short from their toy goal for area children in need. If the organization doesn’t acquire its number of toys, THEN THE KIDS DON’T GET TOYS FOR CHRISTMAS!

How you can help:

1. Stop by one of the many area retailers that sells toys and pick one up.
2. Get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside as you purchase your toy.
3. Drive from area retailer to ProspectMX World Headquarters to drop your toy off.

Here’s ProspectMX’s address:

ProspectMX
221 Rohrerstown Road
Lancaster, PA 17603

Lancaster-Area Small Business Owners And Marketing Pros, Listen Up!

As an added bonus to you for helping ProspectMX make dreams come true this holiday season, stop by our offices and you can receive a FREE website consultation with one of our knowledgeable internet marketing consultants. Its the least we can do to show you how much we appreciate your generosity this holiday season.

For more information on the bike ride and toy collection, happening this Wednesday from 9am - 6pm, please give me a call at 717.406.1884. You can also hit me (@jonathanbentz) or Dave Conklin (@prospectmx) on Twitter and we’ll get you all the details.

Thanks in advance for your help this holiday season - we really appreciate it!

We are often asked to speak at business events on the promise of internet marketing. Through our association with Dave Wolf of Vistage International - a leading CEO mentoring organization - we were recently invited to speak at Homestead Structures during one of their distributorship meetings.

Homestead Structures is a manufacturer of quality sheds and gazebos. Their distributors are predominantly located in the Northeast. Steve Stoltzfus is the President of Homestead Structures and was the host of this recent event.

He is also Amish.

My career in sales for technical and professional services solutions does not provide me many opportunities to interact with the Amish. In fact, my experience to date with the Amish is zero.

Until yesterday.

Our demonstration to Steve’s group of distributors served as our first foray into business with the Amish. Business as usual it was not. During my time here, we’ve been in some state-of-the-art conference rooms of Fortune 500′s complete with all the bells and whistles. Impressive stuff. Costly too. It makes you wonder where all the money is coming from.

Steve’s company is completely different though. Simple, plain and comfortable is how he rolls. Steve sells the steak, not the sizzle. It’s one of the reasons for his success and why Amish goods are always in such demand.

Our meeting on Wednesday with Steve and his distributors was a rare and privileged look inside a world built and run upon the basic tenants of business:

• Genuinely deliver a quality product or service
• Provide product or service at a competitive and fair price

Their approach is as much about what they do as what they do not do. They do not buy expensive art for the lobby. They do not buy expensive imports (or cars in general). They do not give themselves $2 million dollar bonuses.

Their rewards are met each day through sharing in fellowship, enjoying their families and practicing their faith. It is a full day. It is a full life.

To keep the candles lit, they produce a quality product at a fair price with the assurance that you’re getting the best.

I think we all could learn a little lesson about business from Steve and his team. Thanks for the opportunity.

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Coming from Lancaster, PA and heading to York last evening (New Year’s Eve), my family and I noticed a very bright non-moving object in the sky below the Crescent Moon. My hopes of it being a true UFO or even better yet a “Space Station” were quickly dismissed.

When reality set in, further investigation indicates that it was the planet Venus. It was truly a very cool sight to see.

Did anyone else notice Venus last evening under the moon?

Wierd.  Weird. (Thanks to the coward in Philly who posted the comment but wouldn’t say who they were) 

I’m sitting here doing some work and just felt the house shaking. I thought it was a truck outside at first or like a ton of wind or something.

Anyone in Lancaster feel it too?

It really felt like an earth quake.

UPDATE:

Turns out it WAS an earthquake. OK… heading to bed now.

Comment below if you felt it, too…

UPDATE: Anyway, come earthquakes, hail storms, hell or high water, quality, ethical internet marketing services will continue to come from Prospect MX Lancaster PA. You can count on that. Thanks!