It’s official. We’re in the thick of the holiday season. The time from Thanksgiving to the New Year when we all get caught up in the merriment of long-standing traditions and fun celebrations. As businesses, we tend to turn our thoughts to the year past (and the piling deadlines due before the end of the year) and the annual greeting card to clients and colleagues.

Enter Paragon Design Group. Every year they seem to come up with yet another card that’s a genuine knee-slapper while also targeted and unforgettable. As the time approached to get their creative gears in motion for 2009, instead of focusing on their agency and its clients, they turned to a different focus – a nonprofit in serious need of funding.

All Walks of Life, Inc. better known at AWOL, is a 501(c)3 organization that helps at-risk youth discover a better life through structured programs during the hours when they are most vulnerable - after school and in the evenings. More specifically, their efforts focus on creative outlets from performing arts to technology-based programs – so of course, we love that. And so does Paragon. So when they found out that the annual budget for AWOL had been cut, they decided to turn a typically humorous creative project, into an all-out fundraising palooza.