13 Cleveland-area nonprofits compete for prize that includes 100 service hours and $5,000 cash donation.

SOURCE: Schauer Group | July 1, 2021

CLEVELAND, OH (July 1, 2021) — Schauer Group, the region’s innovative risk management, business insurance and human capital services firm, has announced that 13 Cleveland-area nonprofits are finalists in the company’s Century of Service Nonprofit Award program.

The Century of Service program is designed to provide nonprofits who are physically located in or offer services in the Cleveland metro area the opportunity to compete for an awards package that includes a donation of 100 service hours from Schauer Group associates and a one-time cash donation of $5,000.

• America SCORES Cleveland: To inspire youth to lead healthy lives, be engaged students, and have the confidence and character to make a difference in the world.
• Butterflies Landing: to influence, empower and mentor women who struggle with substance abuse, mental health issues, and readjusting to society after being incarcerated.
• The City Mission: To provide help and hope to all people through the transforming power of God’s love.
• Cleveland Kids’ Book Bank: To foster improved literacy and a love of reading by providing free books to children through community partnerships.
• Cleveland Rape Crisis Center: To support survivors of rape and sexual abuse, promote healing and prevention and advocate for social change.
• Cornerstone of Hope: To provide support, education, and hope for the grieving.
• Empower Sports: To enrich the lives of athletes of diverse challenges through sports and exercise while promoting kindness, character, and tolerance.
• Engage! Cleveland: To attract, engage and retain young, diverse talent to Greater Cleveland by connecting young professionals to people, jobs, organizations, and events.
• Greater Cleveland Film Commission: To promote increased media production in Northeast Ohio using effective strategies for attraction and workforce development including building an artistic infrastructure through film.
• The Haven Home: To serve under-resourced women and their children by empowering sustainable independence.
• Pathway Caring for Children: To help children and families realize the possibilities of their lives through foster care, adoption, and counseling.
• Providence House: To protect at-risk children and support families through crisis, strengthening communities to end child abuse and neglect.
• Steven G. Cancer Foundation: To build community and support for the AYA (Adolescent and Young Adult) cancer community through wellness, storytelling, education, and research.

Finalists were selected by a panel of Schauer Group associates based upon a variety of factors, including but not limited to: quality of application, demonstration of need and alignment with Schauer Group company core values. Schauer Group has provided a voting portal online at SchauerGroup.com/vote that launches July 2.

Voting will take place from Friday, July 2, through Friday, July 16. Voting will be open to the community at large, including any employees, board members and clients of the competing organizations. Individuals may cast one single vote each day during the voting window.

The finalist organization who receives the most votes when voting concludes on July 16, will receive the Century of Service donation from Schauer Group. The winner of the Century of Service Award—receiving 100 service hours and a $5,000 donation—will be announced on Monday, July 19.

ABOUT SCHAUER GROUP

Based in Canton, Ohio, Schauer Group, Inc. is one of the largest independently owned insurance and risk management firms in Ohio, providing risk management, business insurance, human capital services, employee benefits, contract surety, and personal insurance to a variety of clients nationwide. As the nation’s first ISO Registered Independent Insurance Agency, Schauer Group maintains a commitment to quality and excellence, achieving an industry-leading 95 percent client retention rate. The fourth-generation, family-owned company is celebrating its 102nd anniversary in 2021.

The Mayfield native is back in town for a new project.

SOURCE: Cleveland Scene | Emma Sedlak
June 29, 2021

Coming off of the success of her latest short film “Cake,” which screened at 38 film festivals and took home nine awards, director and Mayfield native Anne Hu is returning to Cleveland to shoot her new project, “Lunchbox.”

The inspiration for “Lunchbox” came when Hu came across a video titled “Lunchbox Moment” on her Facebook feed. A “lunchbox moment” can be described as a shared experience among Asian-American children who are judged or bullied for cultural foods brought to school in their lunchbox, often leading them to be ungrateful for their lunch’s cultural heritage. What made this video stand out to Hu was its conclusion. After participants shared their “lunchbox moment,” they reconciled with their parents, apologizing for pushing their heritage away and thanking them for their hard work.

SOURCE: Spectrum News 1 | Taylor Bruck
May 31, 2021

LAKEWOOD, Ohio – Lakewood native Lindsay O’Keefe started making movies around the age of 10, using an iPad.

“Every holiday, my cousins would come together. We would all make goofy films, you know, on my iPad would use iMovie, I would edit them,” O’Keefe said. “After realizing that it could actually make it into festivals, I kind of thought, oh, maybe this is a little more than a hobby.”

Hollywood movie producer Charles Band talks Tuesday about why he bought a Fairmount Avenue home in Cleveland Heights. Mike Cardew, Akron Beacon Journal

SOURCE: CantonRep.com | Craig Webb, Akron Beacon Journal
May 28, 2021

The house looks perfectly ordinary on a street lined with anything but ordinary homes.

Fairmount Boulevard is home to relics of a bygone era when the movers and shakers of Cleveland a century ago looked east for greener pastures and a place to build stately estates.

The homes look like something out of a movie with grand architecture and have relics of the bygone era when there were back staircases where servants could quietly move about and not disturb the owners.

Life is pretty quiet nowadays along the boulevard on the city’s edge in Cleveland Heights. Except for the occasional blood-curdling screams from one home that is about to become very familiar to fans of horror B movies.

Northeast Ohio native Brandon LaGanke co-directed feature film debut, “Drunk Bus.” (Courtesy of Brandon LaGanke)

SOURCE: Cleveland.com | John Benson
May 12, 2021

CLEVELAND, Ohio — It was an ironic twist of fate that considering the world over the last year was stuck at home living its own “Groundhog Day”-like experience, streaming services offered a number of loop movies where characters experience the same day over and over again before discovering some level of self-fulfillment.

Taking a different approach to the same feeling is Northeast Ohio native Brandon LaGanke’s new film “Drunk Bus,” which highlights the worst kind of literal loop — working a dead-end job with no end in sight.

Liam Neeson stars as “Jim” and Jacob Perez as “Miguel” in director Robert Lorenz’s THE MARKSMAN, an Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment release. (Credit: Ryan Sweeney / Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment)

SOURCE: Cleveland.com | Joey Morona
April 27, 2021

CLEVELAND, Ohio — What happens when your real life exceeds your dreams?

Ask Danny Kravitz. The screenwriter grew up in Pepper Pike and graduated from Orange High School. During the fall of 2019, he found himself on the set of “The Marksman,” his first produced screenplay. The movie starred Liam Neeson, one of his favorite actors of all time, and, as luck would have it, was being shot in Cleveland.