“With a record breaking $102 million raised through eBay for Charity in 2018, eBay continues to be fully committed to enabling millions of people to come together and make a difference,” said Brenda Halkias, General Manager of eBay for Charity. “Unlike any other online marketplace, our platform allows anyone in the world to make an impact, giving consumers the freedom to support the causes near and dear to them.”

Impact in 2018
People turned to eBay in key moments throughout the year to make a difference and rally behind important causes in 2018. From helping the victims of the California wildfires to supporting the battle against cancer, to celebrating Pride Month around the world, eBay for Charity connected buyers and sellers to the causes they care about most. By activating its millions of everyday consumers, sellers and partnering with some of the most influential celebrities and charities, eBay leveraged the power of its entire community to make its biggest impact to date with a goal of raising $1 Billion for charity by 2020.

High-profile sales of unique items and experiences brought in a record of charitable donations:

• Ending Poverty: The annual Power Lunch with Warren Buffett raised $3.3 million for GLIDE, a San Francisco-based charity that has a mission of breaking the cycles of poverty and marginalization;
• Spreading Music & Culture: eBay for Charity celebrated the 60th Annual GRAMMY Awards by raising $140,000 for the GRAMMY Foundation and MusiCares;
• Fight Against Cancer: The 14th annual ESPY Day Auction raised approximately $650,000 in support of the V Foundation for Cancer Research;
• Spotlighting Equality: The TIME’S UP Charity campaign raised $140,000 to benefit the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund;
• Supporting Veterans: The 2nd Annual Veterans Day Celebrity Auction with Kenny Chesney, Ben Stiller, and Jake Tapper raised $160,000 for Homes for Our Troops, which provides support for severely injured post – 9/11 Veterans.
• Activating eBay’s Global Seller Community: Charities big and small from around the world benefited from sellers who chose to donate a percentage of their sales and buyers who gave at checkout.

To learn more, visit eBayInc.com/Impact/eBay-for-charity/.

This article originally appeared on PR Newswire. (Picture from eBay)

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“With the help of the generous car collector community, we raised $9.6 million for charity, the most of any auction in our 48 year history,” said Craig Jackson, chairman and CEO of Barrett-Jackson. “As a company that was built on giving back to the community, this is a significant milestone worth celebrating. We’re so grateful for the countless wonderful people and companies, from OEM partners to celebrities, who have joined us on this phenomenal journey. Giving back is the heartbeat of Barrett-Jackson and the collector car community.”

A total of 13 lots were generously donated to help raise funds and awareness for deserving charities across the country. The auction was adrenaline-filled as some of the greatest names in NASCAR were on the block in support of their favorite charities. Richard “The King” Petty, as well as former NASCAR Winston Cup Champion Rusty Wallace, Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver David Ragan and NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon each took to the auction block to encourage bidding during the sale of vehicles for their charities.

In keeping with tradition, Barrett-Jackson gave bidders the chance to own three very special VIN 001 vehicles. On Friday, Carolyn and Craig Jackson were the winning bidders of the 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 VIN 001 (Lot #3008), which sold for $1.1 million to benefit JDRF.

“I’m a lifelong Shelby enthusiast and enjoyed a long friendship with Carroll Shelby,” said Jackson. “Over the years I’ve collected several rare Shelby Mustangs, including the ‘Green Hornet,’ and more recently the experimental Shelby, ‘Little Red.’ The 2020 GT500 VIN 001 is a descendant of those vehicles, and I’m honored to have it as a part of my collection. More importantly, the money from the sale of this rare Mustang will be donated to JDRF. Type 1 diabetes is a terrible disease, and Carolyn and I are grateful to be a part of helping JDRF find a cure.”

The auction action continued on Saturday when Barrett-Jackson teamed up with Toyota North America for the sale of the 2020 Toyota Supra VIN 20201 (Lot #3010), which raised $2.1 million to benefit the American Heart Association and The Bob Woodruff Foundation. The winning bidders of the first global production Supra were renowned collectors Jeanette and John Staluppi. The spirit of giving continued when the 2019 Ford GT Heritage Edition VIN 001 (Lot #3012) sold for $2.5 million, with 100 percent of the hammer price benefiting United Way for Southeastern Michigan, which was purchased by Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick.

Four Chevrolet Camaros as seen in the Hollywood blockbuster movie franchise “Transformers,” sold as one lot on Saturday. The four Bumblebee Camaros were seen in “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” (Lot #3009), “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” (Lot #3009.1), “Transformers: Age of Extinction” (Lot #3009.2) and “Transformers: The Last Night” (Lot #3009.3). Sold as a group for $500,000 with an additional donation of $25,000, 100 percent of the sale benefited Operation Homefront, which helps build strong, stable, and secure military families.

“There are no words to express how blessed we feel to be able to support so many wonderful charity organizations,” said Steve Davis, president of Barrett-Jackson. “You simply can’t put a price tag on all of the good that will come from the millions raised to help our kids, members of our U.S. military and first responders live richer, fuller lives. There’s no doubting the generous spirit of this hobby when our consigners and bidders open their hearts to help where help is needed most.”

In total, 16 charity vehicles raised $9.6 million, which includes additional donations made on the block beyond the hammer prices. The 2018 Scottsdale charity vehicles include:

1. 2019 Ford GT Heritage Edition VIN 001 (Lot #3012) – $2,500,000 benefiting United Way for Southeastern Michigan
2. 2018 Ford Mustang Cobra Jet (Lot #3011) – $200,000 benefiting Fighter Country Foundation at Luke Force Air Force Base
3. 2020 Toyota Supra – First Production VIN 20201 (Lot #3010) – $2,100,000 benefiting the American Heart Association and The Bob Woodruff Foundation
4. Chevrolet Bumblebee Camaro Collection (Lot #3009), (Lot #3009.1), (Lot #3009.2) (Lot #3009.3) – $525,000 benefiting Operation Homefront
5. 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 VIN 001 (Lot #3008) – $1,100,000 benefiting JDRF
6. Jeff Gordon’s 2016 Corvette C7.R (Lot #3007) – $600,000 benefiting the Jeff Gordon Children’s Foundation
7. 2015 Ford Shelby Mustang GT350R (Lot #3006) – $500,000 benefiting the Petersen Automotive and Henry Ford Museums
8. 1981 Jeep CJ7 Custom SUV (Lot #3005) – $1,310,000 benefiting the Gary Sinise Foundation
9. 1967 Chevrolet Camaro Custom Coupe (Lot 3004) – $165,000 benefiting Childhelp Through SEMA Cares purchased by singer/songwriter Ray J
10. 2018 Ford Fusion NASCAR Race Car (Lot #3003) – $300,000 benefiting Shriners Hospitals for Children
11. 1986 Pontiac Grand Prix (Lot #3002) – $100,000 benefiting Task Force Dagger Foundation
12. 2015 Ford Petty’s Garage Stage 2 Mustang (Lot #3001) – $100,000 benefiting Barrow Neurological Foundation
13. 2019 Bennington SW Series Boat (Lot #3000) – $100,000 benefiting The Arians Family Foundation

Consignments are now being accepted for the 2019 Palm Beach Auction, April 11-13, 2019. Visit the Barrett-Jackson website for advance tickets and information on VIP Packages. Also, follow Barrett-Jackson on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter for the latest news and information heading into the 2019 Palm Beach Auction.

About The Barrett-Jackson Auction Company

Established in 1971 and headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Barrett-Jackson, The World’s Greatest Collector Car Auctions®, is the leader in collector car and automotive lifestyle events, which include authentic automobilia auctions and the sale of high-profile estates and private collections. The company produces auctions in Scottsdale, Arizona; Palm Beach, Florida; at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut; and Las Vegas, Nevada. With broadcast partners MotorTrend (formerly Velocity) and the Discovery networks, Barrett-Jackson features extensive live television coverage, including broadcasts in over 150 countries internationally. Barrett-Jackson also endorses a one-of-a-kind collector car insurance for collector vehicles and other valued belongings. For more information about Barrett-Jackson, visit Barrett-Jackson.com or call 480-421-6694.

This article originally appeared on Business Wire.

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A Chick-Fil-A in Mobile, Alabama opened their doors on Sunday as a means of granting the birthday wish of a 14-year-old boy with cerebral palsy and autism.

Elijah Sprague was born prematurely at 18 weeks old. His mother, Rene, worked in the NICU where Elijah was born. After 6 months of Elijah living at the hospital, Rene decided to adopt him despite doctors saying that it was unlikely for him to live longer than one year.

Needless to say, Elijah has outlived the grim prognosis and grown up to be a sweet teenager.

Today, the youngster adores Chick-Fil-A and dreams of one day working at a drive-thru window – so as a means of celebrating his birthday, his family asked the owner of the local sandwich restaurant if they could open their doors on a Sunday for Elijah’s special day.

“He was like, ‘Why are you even asking? Absolutely, we have to do it,’” Sprague told CBS News.

True to his word, the store opened on Sunday and staffers baked cookies for Elijah to give away at the drive-thru window.

More than 40 family acquaintances stopped by the window, some of them even going through the drive-thru multiple times. Afterwards, the exuberant teenager and his friends were able to eat dessert and play in the restaurant.

“This is super special to us,” Sprague said. “Elijah’s not going to graduate like our other kids. He’s not going to get married or have kids. So this is just a really cool experience to us for him to have this level of attention… it’s neat for people to recognize he’s a really cool kid.”

This article originally appeared on Good News Network.

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Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. created a special IPA called Resilience—with the intention of donating all of its proceeds to benefit wildfire victims. The company, which is based out of Chico, near the devastated town of ‘Paradise,’ hoped to garner additional donations by asking other brewers to sell Resilience to their customers.

When the company launched the new India Pale Ale in November, they expected maybe 300-400 California brewers to participate. By the time the beer was made available to the public in mid-December, over 1,500 breweries across the United States volunteered to serve up the liquid love.

The initiative is expected to raise roughly $15 million for wildfire relief, all of which will be donated to the Golden Valley Community Bank Foundation dedicated to victims of the Camp Fire.

“Our suppliers donated ingredients to every brewery nationwide,” said the brewer’s website. “Wholesalers and retailers agreed to carry the beer and donate every dollar they received. All of them agreed to do this for free to benefit people they had never met.”

17,000 barrels—or 4.2 million pints—of Resilience were produced, and the label design was stamped with the moniker: Butte County Proud.

Find Resilience IPA near you, using this list of participating brewers.

This article originally appeared on Good News Network.

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Sarah Gomez-Lane is the winner of the 2018 Doodle for Google contest. This is the contest’s 10th year running, and for this year’s prompt, the tech company asked young artists to create drawings about what inspires them.

Upon receiving hundreds of thousands of submissions, the youngster from Falls Church, Virginia landed the prize after she drew a group of dinosaurs in the shape of the Google logo.

Sarah says she is inspired by dinosaurs because she wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up – and since the judges were so moved by her simple submission, she was named the winner.

“When they called my name, I felt happy and surprised,” said Sarah. “I’m going to call my principal and he’s going to say, ‘Yay!’”

In addition to receiving a $30,000 scholarship so she can pursue her dream of being a paleontologist, her school was also given $50,000 to spend on technology that will help their students succeed.

She also got to collaborate with the Google animation team to make the doodle an interactive graphic.

“I just hope when people see the doodle they are also inspired to think about not only what they dreamed of and wished of when they were kids, but to also take a second to enjoy the simple things in life,” said Perla Campos, Global Marketing Lead of the Google Doodle Team.

(WATCH the video below)

This article originally appeared on Good News Network.

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The new plastic-free rings are being made from plant-based biodegradable fibers, with a mix of by-product waste and compostable materials.

If left in the environment, they break down into organic material that is not harmful to wildlife, whereas the industry standard plastic six pack rings are made from a photodegradable form of polyethylene that results in increasingly smaller pieces of plastic if not recycled—at a terrible cost to the environment.

Corona will begin testing the plastic-free rings in their homeland of Mexico at the start of the new year. If the initiative proves successful, they plan on expanding the rings to the UK as well.

The plastic-free packaging is part of Corona’s partnership with Parley for the Oceans. Since the partnership launched last year, Corona and Parley have conducted over 300 clean-ups in more than 15 countries, including the Maldives, Palau, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Chile, Indonesia, Italy, South Africa and Australia, resulting in more than three million pounds of plastic waste collected.

“The beach is an important part of Corona’s DNA and we have been working with Parley to address the issue on the frontlines where plastic is physically accumulating,” said Corona Better World Director Evan Ellman in a statement. “We also recognize the influence a global brand like Corona can have on the industry, and with the support of Parley, are pursuing scalable solutions like plastic-free six pack rings that can become a new standard to avoid plastic for good.”

Corona is now the second global beer brand to implement such sustainable packaging, since Danish-based brewer Carlsberg announced that they would begin piloting a similar initiative back in September.

This article originally appeared on Good News Network.

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The initiative will promote Operation Hero-Animal Bond, a program developed by HSUS and the Veterans Health Administration that connects veterans with qualified shelter pets to accomplish the dual goals of bringing purpose, structure, and unconditional love into veterans’ lives and giving adoptable shelter pets loving homes. A Dog’s Way Home will be released in theaters nationwide on January 11, 2019.

Operation Hero-Animal Bond builds model programs and networks with local shelters and rescues to establish connections with local VA medical facilities. These connections make it easier to link veterans with pets ready for adoption and fostering, support veteran volunteerism, and increase veteran social interaction in their local communities. The partnership also aims to improve the health and well-being of veterans through the human-animal bond, the care of their pet and built-in social interaction and developing regular exercise routines.

Gavin Polone, producer of A Dog’s Way Home, said, “We are grateful for the opportunity to team up with the Humane Society of the United States in helping real-life service women and men to form the bonds with animals that will help them overcome the challenges they face. In our film, the character played by Ashley Judd is an army veteran who suffers from PTSD, and we are able to see how the human-animal bond can be invaluable to improving the lives of people like her.”

A Dog’s Way Home chronicles the heartwarming adventure of Bella, a dog who embarks on an epic 400-mile journey home after she is separated from her beloved human, Lucas, an aspiring medical student and VA hospital volunteer. Bella touches the lives of many during her unwavering quest; from an orphaned mountain lion cub to a homeless veteran down on his luck, Bella brings joy and comfort to everyone she meets with her unique spirit and faith. A Dog’s Way Home is an emotionally charged and uplifting spiritual odyssey that follows one dog’s journey home that highlights the power of unconditional love between a dog and her owner. Starring Ashley Judd, Jonah Hauer-King, Edward James Olmos, Alexandra Shipp, with Wes Studi and Bryce Dallas Howard, the film is directed by Charles Martin Smith from a screenplay by W. Bruce Cameron & Cathryn Michon, based on the book by W. Bruce Cameron, and produced by Gavin Polone.

This article originally appeared on Look To The Stars.

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So as a means of providing happiness and healing to thousands of pediatric patients, Dunkin’ and Baskin-Robbins are spending $2 million to bring full-time therapy dogs into American hospitals.

The Joy in Childhood Foundation, the independent charity that is powered by the two restaurant chains, is launching Dogs for Joy, a program to bring in-residence pups that are bred and trained as service dogs to “work” full-time in children’s hospitals across the nation.

The ‘facility dogs’ will offer distraction, motivation and joy to patients and families while simultaneously lowering stress and anxiety for pediatric patients and encouraging them to complete their health care goals. Additionally, in-residence dogs can be trained to keep kids calm during medical interventions, teach patients how to take medication, or demonstrate how to put on a hospital gown.

This type of in-hospital program is relatively new, and out of more than 220 children’s hospitals in the United States, very few have them. The groundbreaking Dogs for Joy initiative will provide grants to launch a new in-residence dog program or maintain an existing one, covering costs like adoption fees, staff training, and canine care supplies like food, grooming tools, and toys.

“Our mission is to bring joy to kids in truly meaningful ways,” said Kari McHugh, Executive Director of the Joy in Childhood Foundation. “As a mother who has cared for a child with cancer, my family and I know well the happiness these dogs create on even the worst days, and the powerful, positive impact a relationship with a dog can make.”

The first hospital to receive a grant is the Cleveland Clinic Children’s in Ohio—$150,000 to fund a new program employing two therapy pups for three years.

Children’s hospitals across the US are invited to apply for a grant on the foundation’s website before the cut-off deadline on March 31st, 2019.

(WATCH the video below) – Photos by Joy in Childhood Foundation

This article originally appeared on Good News Network.

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The 100-megawatt Hornsdale Power Reserve, which was designed by Tesla, has saved over $40 million AUD in annual maintenance costs to the electrical grid, also known as frequency controlled ancillary services (FCAS).

The report, which was conducted by consultancy firm Aurecon and commissioned by Neoen, the energy company that manages the massive battery, goes on to say that this is a 75% reduction in annual maintenance costs compared to 2016 and 2017.

The data is especially impressive since the battery itself only cost about $66 million.

The battery was built in just 54 days after Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a bet with state legislators, saying that if he was unable to finish the battery in 100 days, he would give it to them for free.

In addition to being a cheaper replacement to the fossil-fuel dependent system that was previously used by the energy market operator, the battery creates zero carbon emissions. It is also capable of responding to outages in a matter of milliseconds, which could not be achieved by previous backups.

This article originally appeared on Good News Network.

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For the eleventh year in a row, Macy’s is donating $1 for every letter to Santa for the first one million entries submitted on their website or through the red mailboxes located inside their stores.

All of the money pledged through their “Believe” campaign will be given to Make-A-Wish so the charity can grant the holiday wishes of sick children around the world. Since 2003, Macy’s has donated more than $112 million to Make-A-Wish, including more than $17 million through the annual Believe campaign, helping grant more than 13,000 wishes and impact more than 2.6 million people, including wish kids and their families, volunteers, community groups, nurses, doctors, and more.“We couldn’t imagine the overwhelming response the Believe campaign would inspire when we introduced it 10 years ago,” said Holly Thomas, group vice president of Cause Marketing for Macy’s.

“We have collected millions of letters throughout the years – each one representing an individual who was moved by the message of hope, love and generosity,” she added. “The result has been the creation of a holiday tradition for families across the country, and ultimately, wish fulfillments that deliver joy and hope to the most amazing children. Macy’s is incredibly proud to play a part in that magic.”

If you want to send a letter, Macy’s will be accepting the messages until December 24th – so if you don’t have to pay for stamps, what are you waiting for?

This article originally appeared on Good News Network.

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