Watch 12-12-12 Concert Live on Patch

The concert will benefit Hurricane Sandy victims, via the Robin Hood Foundation.

Some of the biggest names in music take the stage at Madison Square Garden for the live 12-12-12 concert for Sandy relief. While thousands of people fill the arena, billions are watching live on a variety of screens worldwide.  The concert is streaming live on television networks, movie theater screens and on the Internet, including right here on Patch. The pre-event coverage begins at 3 p.m. CST and the concert is scheduled to kick off at 6:30 p.m. The all-star lineup includes Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, Dave Grohl, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Chris Martin, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Eddie Vedder, Roger Waters, Kanye West, The Who, and Paul McCartney, with other artists to be announced. Every penny sold from ticket sales will go …

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Giving Tuesday: A Chance to Give Back During the Holiday Season

Area nonprofits like Chicagoland Habitat for Humanity and Special Olympics Illinois are among those trying to encourage people to pause in their shopping and find a way to help others.

Will donating to charity ever be as popular as shopping during the holiday season? A partnership of nonprofits hopes so. For many people, the holiday shopping marathon began on Thanksgiving day, with some national chains opening their doors just hours after the traditional turkey dinner. Then comes Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, which has morphed into Cyber Week. Now, there's a new campaign asking you to open your wallet: Giving Tuesday. The Giving Tuesday website says the effort, coming on the heels of days devoted to consumerism, is designed "to create a national day of giving at the start of the annual holiday season. It celebrates and encourages charitable activities that support nonprofit organizations." Many…

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Ron of Japan Donates $10,000 to Cove School

It took Ron of Japan nearly a year to clean and count the 887,031 coins that had collected in the restaurant's wishing well.

Betsy and Sal

Charity Season Begins

Looking for an opportunity to feel philanthropic? You've got choices.

Last week we were trapped in our own driveways. It was the North Shore Half Marathon, and since the signs were only posted at every corner of every street for weeks and weeks prior to the event, and since this has been an annual event for only 33 years, naturally, it took us by surprise. Just kidding. This year, we were prepped and ready. We moved our cars at dawn so that we could actually use them and get to our own charity fun run in Elk Grove Village. Unlike the half marathon, our Foundation Fighting Blindness event covered a mere 5 kilometers. But it was enough.  ‘Tis the season for charity events. A glance at any community calendar features a veritable cornucopia of summer fun runs, half jogs, slow walks, wife carries, stair climbs, …

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Strut Your Pooch For A Good Cause with C.A.R.E.

Help raise money and animal awareness for C.A.R.E. on Saturday, May 12. Attendees will walk dogs along the beautiful sculpture park on McCormick Boulevard and socialize with other animal lovers for a good cause.

It’s time you bring out your pooch for a good cause! On Saturday, May 12 at 9 a.m., join animal lovers throughout Chicagoland for the 17th annual Strut for Strays, hosted by C.A.R.E. The event is a volunteer-run community animal rescue effort. Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl will also be present. You do not need a dog to attend. This annual fundraiser brings the C.A.R.E. community and their dogs together for a three-mile morning walk. The Strut course starts at Ladd Arboretum on McCormick Boulevard, and meanders along the beautiful Sculpture Park to Dempster Street and then back to the Arboretum. In addition to the walk, participants can look forward to the Doggie Carnival, hot coffee, snacks and the chance to interact with dogs of all …

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Northbrook Moms, Daughters Put Party Dresses to Work

Stacy Simpson, Beth Hirshman form nonprofit that clears closets by reselling old dresses to benefit North Shore charities.

Though they're the life of the party, formal dresses often spend most of their existence in a dusty closet. That's a fact that Northbrook moms Beth Hirshman and Stacy Simpson knew too well—both had daughters who seemed to outgrow party dresses faster than their closets could keep up. "It was Beth Hirshman and I who independently were frustrated with how many dresses our girls had for the bar and bat mitzvah season that they were participating in in seventh grade," said Simpson.  "We ended up with all these dresses and they'd hardly been worn, and we felt kind of badly about that." So Hirshman and Simpson, whose daughters are good friends, put their heads together, wanting to put those cast-off dresses to use. The result of their brainstorm…

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Local Moms With a Vision

Looking for more resources for their kids, Northbrook moms of children with special needs formed the nonprofit TotalLink2, which is now in its third year.

When Joan Martin looked into the future back in 2008, she did not like what she saw. As a parent of two children with special needs, she worried about what life would look like after public school. "People call it falling into the black hole or the dark side," said Martin. "What's going to happen when your kid turns 22?" So along with fellow board members Sue Hans and Maureen Kogen, Martin formed TotalLink2, a nonprofit devoted to addressing the needs of people with disabilities from childhood on up. "We started to think, how can we keep our kids as active members of the community? While their peers went to college, what's [life] going to be for our kids?" Martin asked. "Do we stop our lives and they stop theirs and they sit at home? The …

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