For the past several years, our Photographer’s Adventure Club (PAC) has participated in an amazing project called “Help-Portrait.” Each year in December, communities of photographers come together around the world, grab their cameras, find people in need and take their pictures. When the prints are ready, the photographs are delivered.

This year we had the honor and privilege of working with the Down Syndrome Network of Arizona (DSN). www.dsnetworkaz.org.
At 8:30 AM, I drove into Scottsdale and parked my truck across the way from “The Venue,” having no idea what to expect out of this day. As I walked in to this plain building in Scottsdale, I began to wonder, who am I going to work with? What is this going to be like? I love working with people, and I love working with kids who have special needs. As I walked through the door, I was amazed at the beauty and elegance of the entire Venue! It looked like palace inside; what a great place to take amazing pictures! What a fantastic day this was going to turn out to be!

I hit the ground running – the team frantically trying to put everything together – “Tape! Who has tape? Extenders? Extension cords?” Along with a host of other questions that were being fielded by our own Nicholas Pappagallo and Sarah Hales – “Where did you say we are supposed to set up? Up there? No, over there? Ok! Oh, up THERE – got it!” We were running around crazy, but it all came together as we began to wait for our first families –
Computer? Check
Hooked up? Check
Batteries? Check

Then, we wait anxiously…and finally the families began to arrive.
We had such an amazing time with them, creating their holiday family photo, the smiles, the laughter, and the teamwork with everyone was amazing and fun.

One of our photographers, Tina said, “When I handed a family their photo, I could see their faces light up, and that is what makes this event so amazing.”
“Help-Portrait is not about taking pictures, but giving them” was our mantra throughout the entire process, and Nick’s favorite quote.
According to Sarah Hales, our 35 volunteers were all enjoying the experience of being there; interacting with children, families, and our team – a good time was had by all!

At the end of the day, we had over 400 attendees and delivered around 60 photos at this event!

We would like to give a special shout out and thank you to Vivyx Printing (www.vivyxprinting.com) for their incredible generosity, whose staff all came to work on their day off, volunteered their time, and Vivyx donated ALL of the prints they did on that day, AND, they gave each PAC volunteer a store credit for volunteering their time! What an amazing company, please check them out for your printing needs!

Thanks to Jay Beckman and  Robert Turchick for the amazing video on Help-Portait for this year! Please watch, like, and subscribe to our channel, and check out this AMAZING video here!!  http://youtu.be/LsG1eYn92aw

Our Photographer’s Club is the largest club in Arizona with over 1600 members locally, and we thank the team of 35 who came out to play and give back to the community!
We look forward to an even more amazing event in 2014 – see you when PAC Gives Back next December 2014!