VINO CARE

Great Everyday Italian Wines.com knows that the heart and soul of a healthy organization must have the best interest and a strong dedication to the community that it serves. For us, it is the world!

It is our priority to support charities through various means and we will be sponsoring and advertising wine events and products that have charities attached to them all through 2011. Below is a list of charities and wines that have made a difference in people’s lives and need our support.

Give from your heart and make a difference in someone’s life.
It’s not the size of the donation that counts, it’s the act of giving!

The network for Good: This is a safe and secure web-site to help you get started and keep you organized in the world of philanthropy. This site allows you to have all your donation records stored and accessible at any time. They meet the BBB Wise Giving Alliance standards for charity accountability. In fact, since their inception more than 400,000 donors have contributed more than $100 million dollars using the Network for Good giving system www.networkforgood.org

Children’s Charities

Hospitals, Research Centers, Camps, Short stay housing, Safe Houses

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital: More than fifty years ago, Danny Thomas, then a struggling young entertainer with $7 in his pocket, knelt in a Detroit church before a statue of St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes. Thomas asked the saint to "show him his way in life." His prayer was answered, and soon he moved his family to Chicago to pursue career offers. A few years later, at another turning point in his life, Thomas again prayed to St. Jude and pledged to someday build a shrine to the saint. Throughout the next years, Thomas’ career prospered through films and television, and he became a nationally known entertainer. He remembered his pledge to build a shrine to St. Jude. In the early 1950s, Thomas began discussing with friends what concrete form his vow might take. Gradually, the idea of a children’s hospital, possibly in Memphis, took shape. In 1955, Thomas and a group of Memphis businessmen who had agreed to help support his dream seized on the idea of creating a unique research hospital devoted to curing catastrophic diseases in children. More than just a treatment facility, this would be a research center for the children of the world. Today St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is the only pediatric cancer research center that pays for all treatments not covered by insurance regardless of the family’s ability to pay. Danny Thomas had a vision and through the commitment of the business men of Memphis they gave the children of the world a beautiful gift of hope. It is our responsibility to make sure this wonderful place keeps bringing hope to all those families St Jude Children’s Research Hospital 1800-822-6344 www.stjude.org

The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp: Tucked away from the outer roads, amid rural northeastern Connecticut’s rapidly rising-and-falling hills and dense woods, The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp is almost undetectable. Turn off the main road on the border of Ashford and East ford, enter through the Camp gates, and the wonderland explodes in a kaleidoscopic burst of colors and architectural odes to the Old West. A sign with blue and purple letters painted by the campers declares: "Yippee, you’re here!"

Across the Camp’s lake stand totem poles, teepees, wigwams, the boathouse and a gazebo. The tree-lined dirt road winds and edges its way around stables, barns, fields, and paths into the woods until the main complex is revealed: an Olympic-size swimming pool, log cabins circling a wide green, a theater, the OK Corral (the infirmary), craft-making areas disguised as Western-style shops, a towering round dining hall modeled on a Shaker barn, as well as a recreation center. It is here that children with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses find camaraderie, joy and a renewed sense of being a kid. They also get to do things that no one knew they were capable of doing.

Paul Newman and friends have created a place that makes dreams come true and a place for kids with cancer to have a chance to be kids again, There are now eight camps in operation, five in the United States, plus one each in Ireland, the United Kingdom and France, with several more scheduled to open in the near future. The Hole in the Wall Camps are the world’s largest family of camps for children with serious illnesses and life-threatening conditions. Your contributions will keep the laughter, smiles and good times going. What a special place on earth!

Contact the Hole in The Wall Gang at www.holeinthewinegang.com

The Ronald McDonald House: The mission of Ronald McDonald House Charities, Inc. (RMHC®) is to create, find and support programs that directly improve the health and well being of children. RMHC fulfills its mission by creating innovative, effective programs that address targeted needs, and by supporting these programs and other activities conducted by its local Chapters worldwide. RMHC also awards grants to other nonprofit children’s organizations that positively impact the health and well being of children around the world.

RMHC has three core programs that help families in need: Ronald McDonald House®, Ronald McDonald Family Room® and Ronald McDonald Care Mobile®. As the most well-known program, Ronald McDonald House provides a home away from home for families of seriously ill children receiving treatment at nearby hospitals.

The second major program, Ronald McDonald Family Room, extends the comfort of a Ronald McDonald House into the hospital. Often located steps away from pediatric and intensive care units, a Ronald McDonald Family Room provides a place to enjoy a warm meal, talk with other parents and relax. Through relationships with local clinical service providers, Ronald McDonald Care Mobile programs bring cost-effective, high-quality medical, dental and health education services directly to underserved children in rural and urban areas across the globe.

In addition to serving seriously ill children and their families and supporting wellness through their core programs, RMHC extends its reach by helping other not-for-profit organizations directly serve and enhance the lives of children worldwide.

RMHC and their network of local RMHC Chapters in 51 countries and regions have awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and program services to immediately and positively improve the lives of as many children as possible. They have made a significant impact, thanks to the support of hundreds of thousands of passionate and caring volunteers, donors and RMHC staff members.

RMHC is also committed to education. Local RMHC Chapters, with support from RMHC Global, annually award thousands of scholarships — totaling more than 29 million dollars to date — through the RMHC Scholarship Program to students entering college across the United States.

The RMHC hopes to accomplish more. Explore their site to discover what they do, how they do it and, most importantly, how you can help. Remember it’s all about the children and their families who need to know they are not alone.

The Ronald McDonald House www.rmh.org

The Boys Town of Italy: The Boys Town of Italy is an American charity in service abroad. It has its origins in the work of the late Monsignor John Patrick Carroll-Abbing, whose efforts on behalf of homeless children began as a response to what he encountered day after day on the streets of Post-World War II Rome. He found an intact cellar in a bombed out building in the city, collected pots and pans left behind by the German troops, and obtained beds from US army war surplus. With help recruited from a few volunteers, he sent out the word that there was a place for the "shoe-shine boys" to find a meal and to spend the night. Within a few months, he had won the confidence of these boys, who were willing to move with him to Civitavecchia, the ancient port of Rome, where together they founded the first of the Boys’ Towns of Italy. In the past twenty years, the programs sponsored by BTI have become increasingly international in scope. Homeless boys and girls are referred to the Boys’ Towns of Rome and to the Girls’ Town of Rome by various international organizations, the Red Cross, children’s welfare agencies and the courts. Ranging in age from 10 to 21, these young people reflect diverse races and religions – Caucasian, African, Middle Eastern, Asian, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim – and come from many parts of the globe. Every year, in fact, about one-fourth of the children living in the facilities in Rome represent countries other than Italy. You can visit The Boys Town of Rome to see for yourself all the wonderful things this organization has been accomplishing for almost 60 years for generations of lost children.

The Boys Town of Italy www.boystown.it

Charities trying to find a cure

The American Cancer Society: The American Cancer Society is the nationwide community-based voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives, and diminishing suffering from cancer through research, education, advocacy, and service. With more than two million volunteers nationwide, the American Cancer Society is one of the oldest and largest voluntary health agencies in the United States. The aim of the Society’s research program is to determine the causes of cancer and to support efforts to prevent and cure the disease. The American Cancer Society is the largest source of private, nonprofit cancer research funds in the United States, second only to the federal government in total dollars spent.

Beginning in 1946 with $1 million, the Society’s research program has invested about $3 billion in cancer research. The Society has funded 42 Nobel Prize winners early in their careers. The research program focuses primarily on peer-reviewed projects initiated by beginning investigators working in leading medical and scientific institutions across the country. The research program consists of three components: extramural grants, intramural epidemiology and surveillance research, and the intramural behavioral research center. Knowing the facts about cancer can save lives. What you eat and drink, how you live, where you work . . . all these factors can affect your risk for cancer.

Today everyone knows someone that has been affected by cancer and unfortunately many of us can tell personal stories about how this deadly disease has affected some friends and family members. There are so many ways we can help fight this disease we all know to well .Contact today the American Cancer Society today to see how you can make a difference. www.cancer.org

The American Heart Association: The American Heart Association is a national voluntary health agency whose mission is: "Building healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke." The association’s impact goal is to reduce coronary heart disease, stroke and risk by 25 percent by 2010. Progress toward the goal will be measured according to these indicators: Reduce the death rate from coronary heart disease and stroke by 25 percent. Reduce the prevalence of smoking, high blood cholesterol and physical inactivity by 25 percent. Reduce the rate of uncontrolled high blood pressure by 25 percent and eliminate the growth of obesity and diabetes. Every American should be aware of the effects of the stress in our daily lives and try to change certain habits to live longer and healthier life. Contact the American Heart Association today to see how you can help or what you should do for yourself and your family to live healthier. www.americanheart.org

Food Focused Charities

If everyone could feed one person that was hungry in the world the world would be such a better place. For the price of that new IPOD, a weeks cost of that daily cup of gourmet coffee or two tickets to the movies we can put food on the table of a family in need for a day , week, month or even a year and not even feel a life style change in our world.

America’s Second Harvest: The Nation’s Food Bank Network is the nation’s largest charitable hunger-relief organization: A network of more than 200 member food banks and food-rescue organizations Serving all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The America’s Second Harvest Network secures and distributes more than 2 billion pounds of donated food and grocery products annually. The America’s Second Harvest Network supports approximately 50,000 local charitable agencies operating more than 94,000 programs including food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, after-school programs, Kids Cafes, Community Kitchens and Backpack Programs. Each year, the America’s Second Harvest Network provides food assistance to more than 25 million low-income hungry people in the United States, including more than 9 million children and nearly 3 million seniors. Learn about your local America’s Second Harvest network member food bank or food-rescue organization. This is a great charity that helps people in your own back yard. Contact them at www.secondharvest.org

Farm Aid : 22 years of great music, supporting farmers, and strengthening America

Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp organized the first Farm Aid concert in 1985 to raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise funds to keep farm families on their land. Dave Matthews joined the Farm Aid Board of Directors in 2001. Farm Aid has raised more than $30 million to promote a strong and resilient family farm system of agriculture. Farm Aid is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to keep family farmers on their land. Log on to www.farmaid.org and find out how you can help one of America’s greatest resources.

The Food Project: "There is another way to live and think: it’s called agrarianism. It is not so much a philosophy as a practice, an attitude, a loyalty and a passion—all based in close connection with the land. It results in a sound local economy in which producers and consumers are neighbors and in which nature herself becomes the standard for work and production." –Wendell Berry

Their mission is to grow a thoughtful and productive community of youth and adults from diverse backgrounds who work together to build a sustainable food system. We produce healthy food for residents of the city and suburbs and provide youth leadership opportunities. Most importantly, we strive to inspire and support others to create change in their own communities.

Since 1991, The Food Project has built a national model of engaging young people in personal and social change through sustainable agriculture. Each year, we work with over a hundred teens and thousands of volunteers to farm on 31 acres in rural Lincoln, MA and on several lots in urban Boston. They consider our hallmark to be our focus on identifying and transforming a new generation of leaders by placing teens in unusually responsible roles, with deeply meaningful work. Contact us at: www.thefoodproject.org

The Full Belly Project: Vision: The vision of the Full Belly Project is that the residents of rural communities in developing countries live lives of abundance - that they awake each morning to days of economic possibility and go to sleep each night with bellies that are full. Their mission statement says it all" Our mission is to relieve hunger by taking advantage of the highly nutritious properties of peanuts through appropriate agricultural technology.’ In the fall of 2002 a transplanted-to-North Carolina Canadian by the name of Jock Brandis was invited by a friend then serving in the Peace Corps in Mali, Africa, to visit to help repair some machinery in the village where she was stationed. Jock is a sound and light engineer for the movie industry and well known for his mastery of tools and materials. While there, Jock noticed two things. The first was that villagers were beginning to plant cotton as a cash crop. Jock knew that cotton was hard on soil and that without fertilizer or crop rotation, in time the soil was sure to get depleted. The second thing Jock noticed was that women spent hours shelling peanuts by hand in order to feed their families. Since peanuts improve soil by fixing nitrogen in it, Jock asked the women why they were planting cotton rather than peanuts. The women of the village told Jock that peanuts were simply too hard to shell to be used that way. Jock suggested that they use a machine to shell the nuts. However, no such machines were know to the women. Then and there Jock promised to return in a year and bring back a machine that would handle the job of shelling nuts for his new friends in that village.

Once back in the US Jock took to the internet to find such a machine but was unsuccessful. A call to The Carter Center in Atlanta, GA, led to a referral to the University of Georgia at Griffin, an international research center for peanuts. There, Dr. Tim Williams informed Jock that such a machine was one of the as-yet unattained goals of sustainable agricultural development. Many had tried but all had failed to create such a machine. Thus challenged, Jock took up the task of inventing a Sheller.Dr. Williams did, however, provide a valuable lead that ultimately made the difference in Jock’s design efforts. After several attempts and help from many friends, Jock was successful in creating a simple, indestructible, inexpensive machine that shells nuts 40 times faster than by hand. The following year Jock returned to Mali, this time accompanied by a film crew from The Discovery Channel. Since 2003, Full Belly Project has received support from Coastal Carolina Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, and hundreds of other volunteers in the Wilmington area. In addition, Rotary Clubs throughout Eastern North Carolina have generously supported their efforts. In December of 2005 Jock Brandis was invited to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by faculty member Amy Smith, a returned Peace Corps volunteer and recent McArthur Fellowship recipient. Jock was a guest lecturer for a few days at MIT’s ‘D-Lab’, or Development Lab. The D-Lab is a course where students develop appropriate technology devices that are introduced between semesters in January to different parts of the world. This year the Universal Nut Sheller was selected as the technology they were to introduce. As a result, teams went to the Philippines, Ghana and Zambia with sets of molds and metal kits in order to introduce these machines to local populations. In May of 2006 a version of the Universal Nut seller adapted to operate with pedals won Third Place in the prestigious MIT Good IDEAS Competition. Contact The Full Belly Project at: www.fullbellyproject.org

Heifer International: Heifer has learned over the years that a holistic approach is necessary in order to build sustainable communities. So they have developed a set of global initiatives – areas of emphasis that must be addressed if they we’re to meet their mission of ending world hunger and poverty and caring for the earth.

Agroecology: In a world where land is overused, community members need to learn how to protect and rejuvenate their land, water and other natural resources. Heifer helps by teaching environmentally sound agricultural techniques.

Animal Well-Being: Before any Heifer animal is passed along to a project partner; Heifer trains the new recipient in animal management, using our strictly enforced. Animal Welfare Guidelines Gender Equity: Heifer’s view, gender equity is a social justice and human rights issue that directly leads to ending hunger and poverty. That’s why our participants are equal partners in sustainable development projects.

HIV-AIDS: Today, we as a world community, confront AIDS, a virus that in the past 25 years has either infected or killed over 64 million people. It is not only a health issue, as it fractures every sector of society, for Heifer, it is a prominent concern in the arena of sustainable development. This is why Heifer is incorporating HIV/AIDS education in their community training groups.

Micro enterprise: Heifer provides both "no-interest living loans" in the form of livestock, as well as small monetary loans to help people start and expand businesses that yield big benefits for families.

Urban Agriculture: Heifer is reconnecting city-dwellers with their food sources, building strong alliances and instilling an entrepreneurial spirit among adults and youth through their Urban Agriculture projects.

This is a world wide organization that leads projects in communities of need that eventually become self-sustaining. The Heifer catalog allows donors to choose how their money is spent and to which country in need their money goes to. Contact this great charity at www.heifer.org

Share our Strength: Share Our Strength is a national nonprofit organization that inspires and organizes individuals and businesses to share their strengths to help end hunger. They raise funds in innovative ways — from holding volunteer-led special events across the country to developing cause-related marketing ventures and corporate partnerships .Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation® is the nation’s largest and finest culinary benefit supporting the effort to end childhood hunger in America. Every spring, thousands of the best chefs and restaurants donate their time, talent and product at more than 60 events throughout the United States and Canada. Funds raised are granted to local organizations that work to end childhood hunger in communities which Taste events are held and across the country. Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale® is a national campaign that encourages all Americans to help end childhood hunger in America by hosting bake sales and other fundraisers in their neighborhoods, workplaces, schools and houses of worship. Proceeds from each bake sale go toward after school and summer meals programs as well as nutrition education programs for low income children as part of Share Our Strength’s effort to end childhood hunger in the communities where bake sales are held and across the nation. This is one of America’s premiere charities that does so much in America’s communities. Find out how you can help and other outstanding programs they sponsor www.strenth.org

Products with a heart

The following products donate all or part of their profits to well known charities. The products are all high quality and are items that are already found in your refrigerator and cupboards.

Newman’s Own: Paul Newman and the Newman’s Own Foundation donate all profits and royalties after taxes for educational and charitable purposes. Paul Newman and the Newman’s Own Foundation have given over $200 million to thousands of charities worldwide since l982. The Newman’s Own Foundation makes grants to charities within the United States and abroad. Newman’s Own products are some of the best on the market and everyone should be proud to have them on our tables. Find out what products are available and where you can purchase them at www.newmansown.com