What I see is people coming in my store, needy people sell their stuff,” Paynter, who runs Rankin Paynter Buying Center, said. “It’s bad nowadays. I just told the clerk let’s just give it away to charity.”

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This years, Pushups For Charity 2012 will take place on Saturday, May 19th 2012 at 115 gyms around the country. The goal is to see how many pushups you can do in 90 seconds, and to get friends and family members to sponsor you a set dollar amount for each pushup that you complete. Last year, the charity event raised over $250k and this year the goal is $500k.

Raising the Barr Gym in Ridgeland, Mississippi already held its Pushups For Charity 2012 event last Saturday and raised $21k for the charity. In other places, politicians have used the event as a way to focus on health initiatives. In Evansville, IN, Mayor Lloyd Winnecke is encouraging residents to join in the event after his city was recently named as “the most obese city in the country.” In Houston, TX, Mayor Annise Parker has declared that “May 19, 2012 is Pushups For Charity Day in Houston.”

“We’ve been in tour rehearsals for weeks now so it was great for us to get on stage and feel the energy and feedback from the crowd,” Kenny said. “Tonight was all about playing music to help celebrate this great event. People in this town love music and helping out their neighbor and I was glad to be a part of it.”

Kenny had several duet partners throughout the night, including Brees, McConaughey and a lucky fan who joined Kenny for “Somewhere With You” for $10,000. The Amazing Race is the Brees Foundation’s signature event, with all proceeds benefitting the two charities. Created by Drew Brees and his wife Britney, the organization, as well as the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, works to provide care and education for underprivileged children and families in the area.

“Kenny has been a dear friend and always expressed interest in working with the foundation. This is such a wonderful way to end the race and his support means the world to us,” Brees and McConaughey said in a statement.

Organized by the Rolfe Foundation, an organization which supports scientific research to improve the early detection tests for pancreatic cancer, the non-profit will be hosting the fundraiser with the Lustgarten Foundation.

In his support of the cause and the event on June 2, Charlie Sheen tweeted, “Hello Chicago!! I’ll be there to scoot… Walk or Run! Dash for detection for pancreatic cancer research…”

Perhaps Sheen can actually do some good for a change with his tweets for charity.

Her Massage Envy Spa is now going to be the campaign headquarters from May 7 through June 30^th for charity.  McDonagh has launched a fake mayoral race as a way to raise awareness and donations for Glendale Healthy Kids. Glendale Healthy Kids is a charitable organization that offers low-income families assistance. They want to ensure that children have the access that they need to health care and health education.

The McDonagh for “Mayor” campaign includes taking donations for her “race” on the Facebook Fan page at facebook.com/mcdonaghformayor or through the Fundly app and on Fundly.com/mcdonagh-for-mayor.  From May 7 through June 30^th, she will also be donating 10% of all gift card sales that she gets at the store to the Glendale Healthy Kids.

For more information about this creative charity fundraiser, contact the Massage Envy Spa of Glendale, 333 North Brand Boulevard, Glendale, California, 818.246.ENVY (3689).

Kristin Chenoweth

The MLB All-Star Game Charity 5K and Fun Run just got that much more exciting.  Set to take place on Sunday, July 8^th in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, the charity event just signed on award-winning actress, singer and Stand Up To Cancer Ambassador Kristin Chenoweth.  She’ll be joining Hall of Famer George Brett and five-time Royals All-Star and MLB Network analyst Mike Sweeney to raise money for cancer research and education. Presented by Nike, the event will donate 100% of the net profits to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Stand Up To Cancer and the Greater Kansas City Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

As Chenoweth said, “My mom is a breast cancer survivor and I am inspired by her every day. Cancer is a disease that has touched far too many lives and I am so honored to be part of the All-Star Game Charity 5K and Fun Run on behalf of Stand Up To Cancer. Join us on July 8 in Kansas City to raise funds and awareness for a great cause!”

On July 8^th, the event will begin at 7:30 am with the 5K and will be immediately followed by the family-friendly 1 mile Fun Run.  Everyone who registers and finishes the race will get an All-Star medal and t-shirt.

Event sponsors include Aquafina, Bayer Advanced Aspirin, Gatorade, One A Day and Scotts. Learn more about this event and get ready to run at http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/all_star/y2012/index.jsp?content=fivek.

“We were only budged to raise $15,000, but we raised $21.000,” Carousel Ranch’s Denise Tomey exclaimed. “We were really excited at the turnout. This is a unique event and we are so happy to have sold out this year. The weather is perfect, today, too.”

Carousel Ranch is an organization that works to provide therapeutic and recreational riding lessons to disabled children. The non-profit currently helps over one hundred children and teens.

The Charity Trap Shoot is an annual shooting event that attracts benefactors and donations through outdoor, team-focused activities. All event participants are provided with massages, opportunities to shoot shotguns (often for the first time), shoot buckshot at bowling pins and shoot from the back of a fake horse.

“We try to keep everyone entertained and busy so we have a lot of other activities to participate in between the rounds of shooting,” explained Eric Stroh, chairman of the event.

Six of the eighteen competing teams had never held, let alone shot, guns before the event, Stroh said.

“This is a great charity and a great cause. How can you now support Carousel Ranch,” said Jeffrey Hacker, one of the inexperienced participants.

Stroh also thanked Benelli, the gun manufacturer, explaining that the charitable event would never be able to take place without the company’s help.

“Benelli sends us thousands of dollars of material each year, including all the hats and shooting prizes we rely on in order to complete the event. We couldn’t raise the money we do without their help. We are very grateful for their assistance,” he said.

Child Life Zone at Denver Health

Anyone who enjoys the Indy 500 will want to be present at the Indy 500 Soiree presented by Lucas Oil taking place at the Lucas Estate on Friday, May 25^th at 7pm. This is an annual event that raises money for important charities in Indianapolis and the surrounding area.  The party this year will include entertainment, gourmet food, cocktails, live music, dancing and more exciting surprises, and all of the money raised during it will go to the Garth Brooks’ Teammates for Kids Foundation and its Riley Hospital for Children Child Life Zone project.

As Randy Bernard, the CEO of INDYCAR said in a recent press release, “We wanted to give Indianapolis a spectacular event that residents could look forward to each year and also support the community that has loyally followed Indy car racing and the ‘500’ for decades. With each annual soiree, we plan to celebrate the Indy 500 and champion a cause worthwhile to our community. Teammates for Kids’ Child Life Zone at Riley Hospital for Children is the first of many causes we hope to benefit.”

The Teammates for Kids Foundation was co-founded in 1999 by Brooks.  They partnered with the Troy Aikman Foundation to build Child Life Zones in hospitals throughout the country. These amazing zones have state-of-the-art therapy offerings and educational environments for children and their families.  The zones include high-tech electronic games, a theater, a performance stage, a broadcast studio and more.  So far, this partnership is created seven Child Life Zones throughout the US and Riley Hospital is slated to be one of the next recipients.

As Garth Brooks said, “Teammates is honored to team with Riley Hospital for Children in bringing the Child Life Zone to the great city of Indianapolis. Not only will the Zone improve the lives of Indiana’s children, it will also improve the lives of children around the globe. Teammates is a large believer in Child Life programming, and we look forward to the many great opportunities the Zone at Riley Hospital for Children will create.”

The event on the 25^th will include a VIP reception from 6-7pm for special guests to mingle with Brooks, Indy 500-qualified drivers and other celebrities. The doors open for general admission at 7. Sponsorships and donations can be made at: www.lucasoil.com/indy500soiree or call Detail & Design at 317 423 3590.

The project will cover two RB8s with the faces of more than 25,000 fans at the British Grand Prix this coming July. In order to participate, fans simply send a photo and 15 euros in support of the charity. Official confirmation will be delivered, verifying that the photo was indeed added to the collage. Red Bull will match every donation made by its fans, as well.

Mark Webber, a driver, said: “I hope as many people as possible take part in this awesome event. Whoever you want to upload onto our cars- your mum, your dog- it doesn’t matter just upload a photo now and join us.”

Sebastian Vettel, a fellow teammate, said: “This is a great way for fans to be able to join Mark, me and the team at the British Grand Prix and become part of history, while supporting a fantastic charity. So, go to facesforcharity.com now and join us at this year’s race!”

Wings for Life is an organization that believes that “spinal cord injury must become curable.” As a means to achieve this goal, Wings for Life “supports and finances the most promising research projects worldwide aimed at healing the injured spinal cord.”

The idea is for the children to bring pop tabs to school (those little tabs you find on the top of your soda can). Fourth grade teacher Jennifer Westermeyer is in charge of the collection. She explained that the school is about a third of the way towards its goal of having one million tabs.  Once they’ve reached their goal they’ll take the tabs to a recycling center where they’ll receive money.  With the money, they plan to donate to NIH Charities, putting money towards health charities and cancer research.

Westermeyer explained, “We have a contest going on right now. The classroom that collects the most will get a pop party with us at the end of the year.” Beyond the excitement of the pop party, the children are learning about compassion. As Melody Stevens said, “classrooms are getting together, children, staff, people outside of the school are donating. Cancer affects everyone.”

The school is certainly teaching its student amazing lessons.  As Mrs. Stevens gets stronger each day, she recounts an example of the support that she has been receiving.  “We decide to all wear hats the day I was coming in with a hat and no hair, so {the principal}heard of it and he had the entire school wear hats, so when I walked out and saw that, it was amazing”.

Anyone who has a desire to help can bring in or mail tabs to the Morningside Elementary School.