Cause Celeb highlights a celebrity’s work on behalf of a specific cause. This week, we speak with celebrity interior designer Kari Whitman about Ace of Hearts, a dog-rescue organization she founded. The foundation works to save dogs, the day they are to be euthanized, from Los Angeles shelters and place them in loving homes. It also raises funds for medical care for injured dogs. Whitman also she developed the concept for Greener Pup, which sells a custom line of eco-friendly dog beds.
Whitman works as a high-end interior designer and has collaborated with celebrities including Kristin Bell and Jessica Alba. Her work has also been featured in decorating magazines as well as “In Style” and “US Weekly.” She also hosted her own show, “Designer to the Stars,” on the WE network.
Q: Tell me about the Ace of Hearts Foundation.
Whitman: I started Ace of Hearts after my beloved dog, Ace, that I adopted from the shelter the day he was going to be euthanized, passed. When he passed I had all this anger inside of me, so I decided to use it constructively and turn it into saving other dogs’ lives.
Continue reading: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43173911/ns/us_news-giving/
High heel race for charity
Hundreds of women wearing high heels race through the streets of Lima, Peru, to raise money for victims of domestic abuse. TODAY.com’s Dara Brown reports.
View:
View More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/43136898#43136898
A Place Where Girls Matter
Dreams are a luxury few can afford in Kenya’s largest slum. That is, until you turn the corner, walk down a small alleyway and arrive at a bright pink and blue makeshift building. Little girls in bright red sweaters and bright blue skirts are running around, giggling and playing, indoors and out. And when you look at the mud on their shoes, or the tin houses that surround the school, you come to realize that 60 little girls are getting the chance of their lives and they know it. This is the Kibera School for Girls – a refuge from abuse and hunger.http://shininghopeforcommunities.org/projects/ksg/
Girls in Kibera generally don’t have a lot of reason to sing or play. Like most young girls in extreme poverty all over the world, they have little value in their communities. They mostly can’t afford school, are highly vulnerable to sexual crime at any early age and, up until recently, http://www.girlup.org/have received the least amount of attention from international NGOs. The cover of the ECONOMIST in 2010 was stark: GENDERCIDE What happened to 100 million baby girls? http://www.economist.com/node/15606229
Maria Menounos and I were shocked by the statistics, especially because the solutions can be so simple. If they are lucky enough to have access to a school, and to stay there, girls have less risk for exposure to HIV, are less likely to get married early or get pregnant, and are more likely to fight for their own rights, raise healthy children of their own and enter the workforce. This very concept has been highlighted in a compelling campaign by the NIKE foundation. http://www.girleffect.org/video ‘The Girl Effect” campaign argues that girls can be game changers in the economic development of a country if they get help them bypassing the extreme challenges they face from birth. It’s also what many other organizations including CARE, the organization we traveled with, are focused on entirely. http://www.care.org/
Continue reading: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43112010/ns/nightly_news-making_a_difference/
Elton John has dedicated an AIDS benefit dinner to the late American actress Elizabeth Taylor, an early pioneer in the fight against the disease.
John has called Taylor a “force of nature” and pledged she’ll remain the star-studded charity event’s “guiding star.” Taylor died in March.
Celebrities from the film and fashion worlds, as well as the realm inhabited by solely by the extremely wealthy, flocked to the amfAR dinner and auction, held Thursday at the Hotel du Cap in the Cap d’Antibes.
A-listers included Sean Penn, Kanye West, Karl Lagerfeld, Kristen Dunst and Cannes Film Festival jury members Uma Thurman and jury president Robert De Niro.
The star-studded event coincided with the prestigious French Riviera cinema showcase.
Continue reading: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43100164/ns/us_news-giving/
Cause Celeb highlights a celebrity’s work on behalf of a specific cause. This week, we speak with fashion model Selita Ebanks about her work with Shine on Sierra Leone, a nonprofit organization that provides education, mentoring and nutritional support to schools in the west African nation.Ebanks became a model after moving to the U.S. from Grand Cayman. She signed on as a Victoria’s Secret Angel from 2005 to 2008. Ebanks has done modeling Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren and appeared in the 2007 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.Recently, Ebanks launched a neo/postnatal health care program with SOSL to help save mothers and their babies. Ebanks donated the $20,000 that she won on Season 3 of “The Celebrity Apprentice” to this new program.Ebanks was to join television hostBill Maher and tennis star Serena Williams in hosting Shine on Sierra Leone’s fifth annual fundraiser May 25 at the Venice, Calif., home of world-renowned photographer Philip Dixon.
Interviewed by Elizabeth Chang
Q: How did you become involved with Shine on Sierra Leone?
Ebanks: I kind of stumbled upon Shine on Sierra Leone. I went to Sierra Leone with ELLE Magazine and a company called Ruff & Cut just to learn more about non-conflict diamonds and how these non-conflict diamonds companies … get that to the community in Sierra Leone. I didn’t know much about Sierra Leone in going down other than it was a war-torn country. They had a new government, and I was meeting the president and vice president. I had my questions about diamonds.
Well, Tiffany Persons (the director of Shine on Sierra Leone) was down there, and she invited us all to go to one of her schools called Muddy Lotus. So, we went, and that was pretty much the moment when I knew that I had to work with Shine on Sierra Leone. What they do for those people, it’s quite amazing. When we got to the school, there was a parade, and the school was in a very large village. There’s about 500 students at that school, and they were just so happy, so overwhelmed, to have visitors. We walked through the village, and they danced, and there was a presentation for us.
Continue reading: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43067947/ns/us_news-giving/
Kid Rock donated a total of $50,000 Monday to five Detroit area charities, fulfilling a promise the musician made to support his hometown.
Rock announced the donation earlier this month during the Detroit NAACP branch’s annual fundraising dinner. Some had criticized Rock, who received the group’s Great Expectations Award, for displaying the Confederate flag during on-stage performances.
During his acceptance speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Rock said his use of the flag had nothing to do with how he feels about blacks, and he pulled out the checks and said he would give them to the five groups. He officially handed over the money during an afternoon ceremony at Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s office.
After Bing praised Rock’s generosity and turned the proceedings over to him, the musician stepped to the podium, looked around and asked: “What am I supposed to do?”
Bing laughed and quickly said: “You can write some more checks if you want to.”
“I can do that!” Rock said.
The money donated Monday will support city recreation centers, a conservancy on Belle Isle, a youth theater group, a youth training agency and Habitat for Humanity.
Continue reading: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43053913/ns/us_news-giving/
Rashonda Thornton looked up at the menu on the wall, ordered a Caesar salad and dropped a $10 bill in a box. Pretty generous, considering the meal at Panera Bread Co.’s café in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton sells for less than $7.
It was a year ago that Panera converted the Clayton restaurant into a nonprofit pay-what-you-want restaurant with the idea of helping to feed the needy and raising money for charitable work. Panera founder and Chairman Ronald Shaich said the café, operated through Panera’s charitable foundation, has been a big success, largely because of people like Thornton.
“Sometimes you can give more, and sometimes you can give less,” said Thornton, a teacher’s assistant. “Today was one of my ‘more’ days.”
Panera, based in suburban St. Louis, has long been involved in charitable giving, donating millions of dollars and giving away leftover food to the needy. But Shaich sought more direct involvement.
“We were doing this for ourselves to see if we could make a difference with our own hands, not just write a check, but really make a contribution to the community in a real, substantive way,” Shaich told The Associated Press.
What developed was the largest example yet of a concept called community kitchens, where businesses operate partly as charities. Panera’s success in Clayton has led it to open two similar cafes — one in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Mich., and one in Portland, Ore. It plans to add a new one every three months or so.
The majority of patrons pay retail value or more. Statistics provided by Panera indicate that roughly 60 percent leave the suggested amount; 20 percent leave more; and 20 percent less. One person paid $500 for a meal, the largest single payment.
“From the day it opened, the community has just gotten stronger and stronger in their support of this,” Shaich said. “They got that this was a café of shared responsibility.”
Continue reading: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43050301/ns/business-retail/
Time with the family: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uhTR-Faq8U
Half the fun of having more money than you know what to do with is giving it away. Don’t take our word for it — just ask billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who have pledged to leave their huge fortunes to charity (sorry, kids!). Others have opted to give back in more creative ways, like the billionaire who has used his wealth to save… lemurs. Don’t ask, just click.
The two billionaires recently founded The Giving Pledge, an altruistic initiative that encourages the super rich to donate a majority of their wealth to charitable organizations of their choice. Gates and Buffet obviously set the example for their fellow billionaires, making official pledges to give their vast fortunes to charity. Super rich folks like Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg and Barron Hilton apparently love The Giving Pledge concept; they’ve already signed on to donate most of their money. The only people who probably aren’t impressed by The Giving Pledge are the children of these generous tycoons, who are getting much less now.
The eye-popping hat worn by Princess Beatrice at Britain’s royal wedding is to be auctioned to raise money for charity, Buckingham Palace said Thursday.
The famous creation — which some said looked like antlers— will be sold on eBay with the proceeds to go to the charities UNICEF and Children in Crisis.
The hat was the handiwork of Britain’s leading milliner, Philip Treacy, who designed many of the ladies’ hats worn at the April 29 nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton, now known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
The unusual design of the beige hat has sparked a Facebook fan page called “Princess Beatrice’s ridiculous Royal Wedding hat,” and one computer-altered picture showed President Barack Obama and his national security team all wearing the hat as they watched the commando raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.
The sale was announced by Beatrice’s mother, Sarah Ferguson, on the Oprah Winfrey show. A palace spokesman confirmed the sale while speaking on condition of anonymity in line with policy.
Continue reading: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43015545/ns/us_news-giving/
Find me on LinkedIn: http://us.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Matthew/Roszak
The University of Pennsylvania received a $225 million gift for its medical school, creating an endowment that officials said will enable innovative health research, increased faculty recruitment and more financial aid for students.
The School of Medicine also will be named for donors Raymond and Ruth Perelman, Penn announced in a news release Wednesday. The Ivy League university in Philadelphia described the gift as the largest in its history and the biggest ever nationwide that was made to name a medical school.
“It’s a great shot in the arm,” Penn President Amy Gutmann told The Associated Press. “There couldn’t be a better time for him to make this gift. … We’re at a peak in needing these resources and a peak when medicine can make the breakthroughs that are needed.”
Perelman, a 93-year-old Philadelphia philanthropist and business mogul, heads privately held RGP Holdings Inc. that includes manufacturing, mining and financial interests. A Penn alum and major supporter of the city’s arts and cultural institutions, Perelman also put up millions in a failed bid to buy The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News at a bankruptcy auction last year.
He previously gave Penn $25 million for the Ruth and Raymond Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, which opened in 2008.
“Ruth and I believe the future of medicine depends on the ability to produce world-class clinicians and researchers, the hallmarks of Penn and a Penn education,” Perelman said in a statement.
Gutmann said the donation will allow Penn to increase financial aid by at least 20 percent for the medical school class entering in 2012. Reducing loan burdens can enable students to enter the most-needed areas of medicine instead of the most lucrative, she said.
The funds also will help boost research and recruit more faculty. Penn’s medical school includes more than 1,800 faculty members and 2,200 students and trainees.
The gift is an indication that the effects of the recession may be easing, said Rae Goldsmith of the Washington-based Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
Continue Reading: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42983887/ns/us_news-giving/
