Eleven Organizations to Receive $250,000 to Educate, Advance and Support the Global Spirits Community
NEW ORLEANS, LA, July 17, 2018 – The Tales of the Cocktail Foundation is honored to announce the 2018 recipients for the Foundation’s first-ever grants program, which will allocate $250,000 in funding to eleven esteemed organizations that strive to better the global spirits community.
The new leadership team, Board of Director Co-Chairs, Gary Solomon Jr. and Neal Bodenheimer, along with Executive Director, Caroline Rosen, officially took the helm of Tales of the Cocktail in February 2018. The team’s first directive was to formalize a grants program that would give back in a meaningful way, guided by the tenants of the foundation’s core pillars: to educate, advance and support the spirits and hospitality industry.
In April, the Foundation established a Grants Advisory Committee, comprised of a dozen of the industry’s best and brightest minds to help govern the process: Colin Appiah , Bacardi; Tiffanie Barriere, The Drinking Coach & Drinking with the Girls; Eric Bennett, Carrigan’s Public House; Cris Dehlavi, CAP White Coat; Angie Fetherston, Drink Company; Alba Huerta, Julep; Nandini Khaund, Bar Manager; Don Lee, Existing Conditions and Cocktail Kingdom; Lynnette Marrero, Speed Rack; Morgan Schick, Bon Vivants; Kellie Thorn, Empire State South; and Rocky Yeh, Maison Ferrand. Together, this esteemed group of talent reviewed 144 letters of intent, and subsequently, 52 full proposals to select the 11 that will go on to receive either partial or full-funding for their initiatives geared at improving the global bar community.
“As hospitality industry professionals we spend our time thinking about how we can take care of others and how we can contribute to our community. I am honored to sit on the Grant’s Committee this inaugural year. It has been immensely gratifying to help these recipients and I look forward to the positive impact their grants have on our industry, said Kellie Thorn, Tales of the Cocktail Foundation Grants Advisory Committee Member. “It is a true testament to the mission of the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation that they were committed to seeing this grants process through with such little time from purchase of Tales of the Cocktail to the festival. It meant that all of us including the applicants had to work double time to complete the process in time. It is obvious that there is a lot of heart from everyone involved, and it has been extremely rewarding.”
The Tales of the Cocktail Foundation grants program will serve as an ongoing initiative, with recipients announced annually at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans.
“As an inaugural member of the Tales of the Cocktail Foundation’s Grants Advisory Committee, I feel greatly inspired by the hundreds of hours our committee members volunteered in the selection of eleven outstanding initiatives that we believe will make a real and lasting change in our industry,” added Angie Featherson, Grants Advisory Committee Member. “From making strides in understanding our particular health concerns, to becoming more responsible members of our communities, to bringing different faces to the forefront; each of these grant recipients have in common a high level of caring for people, which is the heart of the hospitality industry.”
Please see a full list of 2018 Tales of the Cocktail Foundation grants recipients below.
- 86Waste – Co-founded by Nick Korn and Maureen Hautaniemi, 86Waste is a community organization that plans to utilize this grant to empower people, bars, spirit brands, festivals and other entities to acknowledge wastefulness in their business practices, to set goals for addressing this wastefulness, and collectively build resources to create and implement solutions toward becoming waste neutral.
- Causing a Stir – Co-founded by Alexis Brown and Ariel Neal, Causing A Stir’s mission is to increase diversity, leadership, and mentorship within the hospitality industry. Causing A Stir developed from a luncheon of 10 female bartenders of color who gathered together in fellowship to discuss views and perspectives on the hospitality industry. The group came to find that there was a need for radical inclusion, equal representation and accessibility to educational opportunities within our bar community. This grant will go towards furthering that mission.
- Children of Restaurant Employees – Children of Restaurant Employees (CORE) grants support to children of food and beverage service employees navigating life-altering circumstances. In times of extreme strain brought on by family death, injury or diagnosed medical condition, loss of home, or other sudden or extreme circumstances, food and beverage families can become overwhelmed financially and emotionally. CORE is the nationally recognized community of support for all food and beverage service families in need by ensuring they feel cared for and valued. CORE will utilize their grant to establish a proactive fund for disaster relief in order to provide immediate assistance during times of need. They seek to support all applications that qualify for support during natural disasters.
- CocktailSafe.org – Founded by Camper English, CocktailSafe.org will serve as a directory of ingredients and techniques, each linking to a page. Much like a Wikipedia entry, every bit of content would link to original sources, government documents, and additional resources. The goal is to be both simple enough that bartenders can quickly seek out answers/advice for any particular ingredient/technique, but so thoroughly researched and referenced that anyone could independently confirm the data. This funding will contribute towards the creation of this educational platform.
- CrescentCare – CrescentCare (previously NO/AIDS Task Force) is a non-profit community-based organization which serves more than 10,000 patients with three primary care sites in Mid-City including behavioral health and dental services. To accommodate its rapid growth, CrescentCare will be consolidating and expanding its clinics at a major new state-of-the-art facility in New Orleans at 1631 Elysian Fields Avenue which will open in January 2019. CrescentCare plans to implement a creative campaign and conduct outreach and education to make hospitality employees in New Orleans aware of its compassionate and affordable healthcare services. CrescentCare seeks to positively impact healthcare access and quality of life for those working in the hospitality sector and to provide those individuals with a medical home.
- Healthy Hospo – Improving the health and wellness of the hospitality industry is an enormous task, one that Healthy Hospo, founded by Tim Etherington-Judge, cannot do alone. Their grant will go towards a three-pronged strategy: build the first project dedicated to improving the sleep of the hospitality industry; implement video, the media of choice for the modern generation, to reach and inspire the industry; spread the message broadly to increase access for the community.
- Burnout, Stress, and Substance Use in the Beverage Industry Study– Laura Green, M.Ed. plans to utilize her grant to prompt further research in the beverage industry. Laura will distribute a survey that measures the relationships between stress, burnout, and substance use. Results from this research will allow her to dig in deeper to identify where the stress is coming from, then develop interventions to help mitigate the effects of stress in the workplace. Additionally, she can build off this research to further examine career barriers (both perceived and real) for people of marginalized populations and closely examine relationships with their employer and individual’s perceived support.
- Mezcaleros of Southern Jalisco – Chad Arnholt will utilize this grant to develop a short documentary following mezcaleros of southern Jalisco as encroaching avocado farms change their landscape and deplete groundwater, while the rainy season shrinks by the year. In Jalisco, there is an acute example of how global agriculture exacerbates the impact of climate change on local ecosystems and traditional food systems. This project will help educate viewers on the issue on a global scale.
- Pin Project – Mark Goodwin seeks to turn a pin into an empowering tool behind the bar. When a bartender goes to punch in, he or she will now have a tangible choice to make an intention, with an externally apparent totem that will indicate his or her desire to abstain from drinking during a shift. This decision to wear a pin and not drink is to be respected, unquestioned and understood. It can be donned for any reason; this server needs to drive home, this host is on antibiotics, this barback only drinks once a week, or this manager struggles with substances. For any reason at all, the pin can help assert confidence, help with a social cue, or with promoting the best possible version of this person to the thirsty folks on the other side of the bar. This grant will help launch this grassroots initiative.
- Prism – PRISM is a collaboration of passionate creators, Doron Gild and Jamal Robinson, with the goal of exploring the many facets and bright colorful personalities within the world of hospitality. Through photography and writing we will delve into the lives of the people and communities who are far too often reduced and, many times, left to sit invisible and silent. We will tell these stories, through prose and portrait, in a manner that is intimate and visceral and, above all, honest and beautiful. Our aim is to be an actual step in the right direction, assist in advancing the industry, and create something that effects real, substantial, and tangible change. We’ve heard great stories and seen beautiful faces – we know first hand the beauty and brilliance of this industry – and we want the rest of the world to see it as well.
- The 100 Scots – The 100 Scots is a Community Interest Company founded in Scotland, supporting and promoting the modern Scottish hospitality industry and its network of over 350 Scottish – or Scotland-based – members. The organisation exists to be a single, unified voice for those with a vested interest in the longevity and prosperity of the Scottish hospitality industry and through its events, social media platforms and websites, The 100 Scots has created a space for those people to have their voices heard. By means of shared experiences, inspirational leadership and network support, The 100 Scots advocates positive and progressive change in the areas of its four founding pillars: youth employability, Scottish tourism and promotion, health and wellbeing and finally, education and advocacy.
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About Tales of the Cocktail
Founded in 2002, Tales of the Cocktail has grown from a small gathering of cocktail lovers into the world’s premier cocktail festival. Each year the international spirits industry is welcomed to New Orleans for a week of seminars, tastings, networking events and much more. With 200+ annual events developed specifically for bartenders, distillers and other spirits professionals, Tales of the Cocktail is the industry’s annual meeting place for the exchange of new ideas, products and techniques.
About Tales of the Cocktail Foundation
Tales of the Cocktail Foundation is an non-profit organization that educates, advances and supports the global hospitality industry and creates lasting impact in our host communities. Tales of the Cocktail Foundation is the global leader in spirits education and a platform to tackle issues facing the industry. The pillars of the Foundation are to Educate, Advance and Support the hospitality industry through programs that benefit individuals and organizations in the community and to make lasting impact in communities that host our events.
