The City Council plans to declare next Tuesday, October 25th as Non-Profit Day in LA, coinciding with a major Annenberg Foundation event downtown saluting nonprofits in LA. Wallis Annenberg, Governor Jerry Brown and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will highlight the important role that non-profits play in LA, especially during these tough economic times. Jamie Lee Curtis and George Lopez will co-host and Michelle Branch and LA Philharmonic violinist Robert Gupta will entertain the more than 1,200 guests expected to attend the Annenberg Peer to Peer event. Ten LA non-profits will participate in exciting “fast pitch” presentations about their organizations before an audience of more than 1,000 people for prizes totaling $100,000.
The non-profits that will compete in the “fast pitch” competition include: Cardborigami which makes a portable shelter of treated cardboard that is folded into an origami structure and carried around as a backpack; Get on the Bus, a group that brings children throughout California to visit their mothers and fathers in prison; GRID Alternatives which installs solar systems into the homes of low-income families, reducing their electric bills by approximately 75 percent; Los Angeles Diaper Drive, an organization that distributes diapers to low income families so they don’t have to choose between buying diapers and feeding their children; Beauty Bus Foundation which enhances the quality of life for terminally ill people and their caregivers by providing in-home beauty services; Mother’s Day Radio which takes a service-learning, peer mentor approach to media literacy with college students teaching teens to think critically about misogyny and violence in media; Gumball Foundation, a non-profit that helps students start their own small-scale vending machine business, providing a way for them to earn money for college and motivation for academic success; Village Market Place which increases access to locally-grown healthy goods while creating meaningful jobs for youth and adults; Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, an organization that is creating a mass marketing campaign that places native plants in large retail outlets, helping customers to lower their water bills and conserve natural resources; and Inner-City Arts, an arts education organization in the Skid Row area of downtown LA that brings students from their public school classrooms to art classes.
Judges for the “Fast Pitch” will be Eileen Heisman, president and CEO of National Philanthropic Trust; Nike Irvin, vice president programs for California Community Foundation; Warren Olney, journalist and program host at KCRW; and Jake Winembaum, renowned entrepreneur and founder of numerous Internet businesses and the business incubator and investment firm Blue Waters Research.
Annenberg Foundation’s Peer to Peer will be held at Club Nokia at L.A. Live thanks to the generosity of AEG and the STAPLES Foundation and AEG President Timothy J. Leiweke. The event also received the support of the Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc., the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Entertainment Industry Foundation. Peer to Peer is being produced by Academy Award-winner Bruce Cohen and Bruce Cohen Productions.
