The NWITweetup crowd gathered at T.J. Maloney’s Authentic Irish Pub on Tuesday, April 22nd for the April 2014NWITweetup event with a special Trivia Night-theme game to raise money for participating Northwest Indiana organizations.
The tweetup saw a solid turnout for the Trivia Night contest, with nonprofits competing for a $250 prize from Berman’s Infiniti of Merrillville. The game saw seven organizations competing in a trivia night with questions about the non- profit sector.
Elevate Ventures, A Positive Approach to Teen Health, The Carnahan Foundation, Hannah’s Hope, Honor Flight Chicago, Hammond Education Foundation and Calumet Region Striders were organizations that had representatives compete for first prize - or so they thought.
Like the last NWITweetup event, Berman’s Infiniti of Merrillville General Manager Jae Chang decided it would be best to reward two organizations - the winner of the trivia night and the loser. Jenny Craig - Brown then announced the awardees - Elevate Ventures (the winning organization) and A Positive Approach to Teen Health (the “losing” organization). Each was rewarded $250 for participating so valiantly.
“When I was watching, there was one charity answering all the answers right and one that was maybe a little less prepared, but really having fun with it,” explained Chang. “I thought it would be great to be a little charitable in that way.”
He continued by complimenting the location of T.J. Maloney’s as a great host for a networking event like this citing the food and friendly staff, but also the location.
“I’d like to see more charities come in to this, and even those that came to previous tweetups, to come back,” he said. “The bigger it is the more fun it becomes, and I just may become a little more generous the more fun we have.”
Karen Goldner, Entrepreneur-in-Residence was happy to be at the event and get the word out about Startup Weekend Northwest Indiana, taking place on April 25th at Purdue Calumet
“Elevate Ventures likes to support the startup community and business community in Northwest Indiana and we heard these we a lot of fun and we’re having a great time," said Goldner. “It was fabulous to win, we appreciate the support and we’ll be able to use the money for Startup Weekend, which is an event with a lot of students so we try and keep the costs down.”
Donna Golob, Executive Director of A Positive Approach to Teen Health, used the event as a way to get her Merrillville staff out as a group for some fun, just as she had at the Februrary NWITweetup with her Valparaiso office.
“We had a great time at the last one, it is a great networking opportunity and I just thought, ‘let’s do it again’,” explained Golob. “And to make money losing? That’s a good thing. We gave it our best shot, but the whole thing was to get our team together and have a little fun.”
A special thanks goes to our host, T.J. Maloney’s, who provided a great atmosphere for this type of event and gave us a great spread of appetizers like irish nachos, sliders, and shepard’s pie croquettes. For more information on T.J. Maloney’s, click here.
The next NWITweetup will be coming up faster than you think! Stay up to date with the next event at the NWITweetup Facebook or Twitter pages, and follow the #nwitweetup hashtag.
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