Vitaminwater Sponsors Vitaminschools

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Darius Bikoff

Today, many celebrities and politicians focus on childhood obesity and healthy living. Many don’t realized, however, that people like Darius Bikoff have been focusing on children’s health for years. The entrepreneur and founder of the Vitaminwater empire began to sponsor Vitaminschool in 2006. This is a national cooking contest for teenagers.

Married to Jill Bikoff and an avid sports enthusiast, Bikoff attended a food-services trade convention aimed at the school-lunch market. He was “appalled that not a single thing was fresh,” as he told Houston Chronicle writer Kimberly Stauffer. He said that all of the foods were “all processed and fried and fatty. I walked away thinking, ‘I’ll never eat this stuff. I wouldn’t let my daughter eat it.'”

Thus, the Vitaminschool program was born and it allowed students to compete for cash prizes to their schools to improve lunchtime menus. In 2006, Vitaminschool awarded a $100k college scholarship courtesy of glaceau to Stephanie Wheeler, a junior at the Woodlands Christian Academy in Houston, Texas. The award was given in Union Square in New York City by Kelly Clarkson.

Shave for the Brave Event for Rabbis

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“Shave for the Brave” started in the year 2000 and now has more than 1300 events around the world. Now, a collection of more than 60 reform rabbis got together to shave their heads to raise money for pediatric cancer research. They met at the 125th annual Conference of American Rabbis at the Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park to support St. Baldrick.

The story began with Rabbi Phyllis and Michael Somner, whose eight year old son Sam died of leukemia in December. Phyllis is an associate rabbi at Am Shalom in Glencoe, Illinois and when his mother first considered doing a “shave” in 2012, her sick son rejected it.

Then, in October of 2013, Sam was hospitalized and Phyllis asked a friend, Rebecca Einstein Schorr, if maybe she should shave her head. And her friend replied, “What if a whole group of us do it?”

Together, Sommer and Schorr thought of the idea of a “36 Rabbis Shave for the Brave” event at the CCAR conference. When Sam relapsed in November, even more rabbis took up the cause, and they have so far raised $455,000 toward a goal of $540,000.

“We all felt the hopelessness of this horrible reality,” said Schorr. “These two loving, amazing parents had to tell their 8-year-old son that there was nothing more the doctors could do. There seemed to be something out of what we humans perceive as the natural order and part of what galvanized so many of our colleagues was the notion that as one collective religious voice we could make a stand (and say), ‘We don’t want to bury any more children who are dying from something that if there was enough funding available to help find appropriate treatment, they wouldn’t have to die.”

As Rabbi Isaac Serotta of Lakeside Congregation for Reform Judaism in Highland Park said, “We are doing it in Sam’s memory and in memory of so many others who have lost their lives to childhood cancer, including my own brother, Paul.”

As Sommer said,

“Sammy died approximately 100 days ago,” she said. “I am forever changed, yet I look exactly the same. I’m anticipating a new wave of grief accompanied by, possibly, a feeling of relief that finally my outside appearance in some way matches my changed inside. People have told me that what I’m doing is ‘brave’ and ‘powerful.’ I feel neither of those things, but I fully ascribe to the ‘fake it ’til you make it’ school of behavior, so perhaps when I shave my head, the brave and powerful feelings will follow.”

Team MR8, Others Getting Ready for Boston Marathon

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Boston Marathon Charity Runners

picture from the AP

On this past Saturday, 300 runners dressed as superheroes raced down the last 18 miles of the Boston Marathon course. Hosted by the North Andover-based nonprofit Charity Teams, the superhero run included over 20 fundraising groups.

Included in this group were 26 members of Team MR8 who were raising money in memory of Martin Richard, the 8 year old Dorchester boy who was killed last year near the finish line.

There were 75 spots on Team MR8 and each runner raised $7500 for the foundation. One runner was former Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Sean Murphy, who had never run more than 5 miles when he submitted his application. As he said,

“The Richard family was doing what any American family could have been doing at that time: They were out enjoying the day, watching the marathon, and they had their world rocked.”

Other famous MR8 runners include Arizona U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, and Amby Burfoot, the winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon and editor-at-large of Runner’s World magazine.

As runner Tina Cassidy said, “To carry on the legacy of a little boy who loved to be a peacemaker in his community and he loved to run, this is just one way to give back to his family. There’s great motivation to do well for this team, not just on race day, but promoting peace and hope and all the things Martin cared about.”

The money that Team MR8 raises will go to projects that the foundation’s board members are now starting to play.  As Larry Marchese, a spokesman for the Richard family, said

“Just like everyone else, we are showing that you can’t use terror to change the way we live. It’s solidarity with all of Boston and the rest of the country, and the other part of it is these runners are raising the seed money for this foundation.”