Joye Law Firm Looking for Local Heroes

Joye Law Firm is looking for a few good men and women.

The company has been donating to charities and giving back to the Charleston community for years, providing scholarships, supporting local and national charities and sponsoring fundraisers all over the Holy City. Now the firm is asking Charleston area residents to help them find local heroes to honor through its Joye in the Community Video Contest.

"It was a good supplement to the Joye in the Community program," Managing Partner Ken Harrell said. "Looking at the end of the year we still had room in our charitable donation budget."

While the Joye in the Community program has been doling out scholarships and charitable donations for years, the video contest is new. The firm is asking area residents to submit short videos featuring people who make a difference in the Charleston area to the Joye in the Community website.

"Charleston was recently named the nation’s No. 1 tourist destination by Condé Nast Traveler. This honor is due to the city’s amazing residents—Charlestonians are known for their friendly nature and willingness to lend a hand," Joye Law Firm Public Relations Manager Abbey Smith wrote in a press release detailing the contest. "That’s why Joye Law Firm is launching its Joye in the Community Video Contest and inviting locals to create videos about area residents who are making a positive difference in the community."

The videos must first be uploaded to Youtube, then, using a form on the video contest website, entrants submit the video's URL and their contact information.

An internal panel of judges will select the top three local heroes and each will receive a $200 gift certificate to the restaurant of their choice. The firm will also make cash donations to charities chosen by the winners, with $1,000 going to the charity chosen by the first place winner, $500 to the one chosen by the second place finisher and $250 to the charity of the third place winner.

"We want the videos to be relatively short," Harrell said. "We want to turn some of them into public service TV ads to recognize the people who are doing good in he community."

The deadline for submissions is Monday, Dec. 5. The contest is open to everyone in the Charleston metropolitan area. Children younger than 18 must get their parents' permission to enter the contest.

The firm has also chosen the Dee Norton Lowcountry Children's Center, which wroks with children that have been physically and/or sexually abused, as the recipient of it's fundraising efforts this year. Harrell said selecting the children's center turned out to have been a fortuitous choice, considering the revelations coming out almost daily about child sex abuse allegations concerning and the various schools he was involved with in recent years.