Towards the end of last year (2018), I was approached by Newman’s Own Foundation, and asked to nominate some charities to receive a substantial $75k USD in donations.
The 2019 nominations are now LIVE. If you’d like to nominate a charity, or your own charity, visit http://paulnewmansown.co.nz from 4th February 2019 and close on 4th March 2019.
WHAT IS NEWMAN’S OWN FOUNDATION?
If you aren’t familiar with Newman’s Own Foundation, it was started up by Paul Newman (the actor) in 1982 when he started Paul Newman’s Own. A company that started selling Salad Dressing and donating all profits (after taxes and expenses, etc) to charity.
In fact they’ve just celebrated 35 years of giving, and so far have given more than $500 MILLION in donations to charities all around the world, and even here in little old New Zealand.
In 2017 they gave $75,000 USD to four charities, and have generously donated $100,000 USD for disaster relief to Canterbury West Coast Air Rescue Trust to assist with providing air rescue/ambulance services to the Kaikoura/North Canterbury area after the devastating 7.8 earthquake in November 2016 as road access to this area continues to be limited.
MY INVOLVEMENT
So when I was approached by Newman’s Own Foundation, I was gobsmacked. Why me? Why choose me to nominate anyone for this amazing grant.
My understanding was that they were looking for someone who was connected to the community, even in a broad sense, and could help with nominations.
I was actually overwhelmed by this – because nominating anyone for a $75,000 grant was a huge responsibility. It took me a few weeks to decide on who to nominate because I needed to take this seriously and think about it seriously.
After this time I settled on THREE charities. I wanted to focus on the children, mothers, women and fathers. It’s hard trying to cover all of your bases, but I feel like the charities I nominated covered these.
I nominated KidsCan, the Women’s Refuge (Auckland) and PADA (Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Aotearoa).
I wanted to look after the children, the mothers, the women and the fathers. KidsCan and Women’s Refuge are pretty explanatory, but PADA is a charity close to my heart as they work closely with parents who suffer from anxiety and depression BEFORE and AFTER birth. This includes mothers AND fathers.
In the end, thankfully, gave EACH of the organisations $25,000 USD. So all three of them benefited from it and I am over the moon and SO grateful.
The things that these charities will do with this money is phenomenal and I feel so blessed to have been a part of it. Even if all I did was nominate them.
The charities are the ones who do the hard work and deserve all of the reward and I am so grateful to the Newman’s Own Foundation for donating this money to them.
The 2019 nominations are now LIVE. If you’d like to nominate a charity, or your own charity, visit http://paulnewmansown.co.nz from 4th February 2019 and close on 4th March 2019.
Thank you so much to Newman’s Own Foundation for doing what you do, and even coming down here to New Zealand to help out charities here.
We are all so grateful, and I am so chuffed to have been approached to help nominate the candidates.
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