Mission: Accomplished (for now)

If you patronize a small business, know someone who owns one, or own one yourself, you were also in a tizzy a few days ago scrambling for votes on the missionsmallbusiness.com website.

in a nutshell, Chase and Living Social are giving away $3 million in the form of 12 $250,000 grants for small businesses. I found the link through Pat Rothfuss and immediately passed it on to my sister, who has been struggling to keep her beautiful jewelry shop, Dixie Dunbar Studio, alive since Charleston spruced up King Street and the economy immediately went to the dogs.

Soteria had to fill out an extensive application that included an essay portion (no, I did not help her with it aside from toss a few ideas her way–she’s a fabulous writer all on her own). In addition, as part of the application process, businesses had to acquire 250 votes on the Mission: Small Business website.

I bugged you all for two days solid, and I won’t apologize. I would do anything for my little sister, including pester the crap out of your for 48 hours. And you know what? IT WORKED.

THANK YOU ALL FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY PRINCESSY HEART!!!!
*hugstheworld*

During this process, Soteria decided that her friends & fans needed some incentive to click a button, so she announced that if she got to 250, she would be posting a video of herself singing Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.” and posting it on Facebook for the world to see.

As the day went along she got two back-up singers (one is her fabulous husband, who just passed his Nursing Boards) and she started planning set design, costumes, and choreography.

I know you guys are all wondering when you will be able to feast your eyes on my awesome rendition of “Baby Got Back”. Just an update, one of my backup dancers is out of town till the 8th, which gives me time to relearn all the words and try to come up with costumes/set design. Then we must recruit people to help film/edit the video, and then it’s all yours. I promise you won’t have to wait long for “Miss Stir-A-Bit” to rock your world. –Soteria

What…you thought she was just going to set up her webcam and karaoke for a bit?? Silly, you. SHE IS A KONTIS SISTER. If we raise the bar for anyone, it is ourselves. (And then each other.)

I will be posting/embedding the video the moment Miss Stir-a-Bit goes live — so if you don’t catch it on the Dixie Dunbar FB Fan Page, you will catch it here. I don’t know about you, but I CAN’T WAIT.

It will be worth it, though. YOU are worth it. You deserve all the smiles in the world for helping accomplish this, and once again, we thank you.

Now that the votes are literally in, the thousands of applications are reviewed by a panel including:

  • Steve Case, entrepreneur and founder of AOL
  • Candace Nelson, founder of Sprinkles Cupcakes
  • Jason Calacanis, co-founder of Weblogs, Inc.
  • David Chavern, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
  • Richard Quigley, president, Business Card, Chase
  • Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO and co-founder of LivingSocial

We will keep you posted on that as well.
WISH US LUCK!!
xoxoxo