See below for the press release from our event:

TEAM CHARITY GIVES GRANT TO LIBERTY HUMANE SOCIETY

HOBOKEN, NJ  – January 19, 2012 – A non-profit geared towards young professionals granted Liberty Humane Society $1,000, thanks to two generous volunteers who applied on the shelter’s behalf. 

Team Charity formed the Ambassador Grant with the goal of letting their constituents choose where they donated the money they raised through some of their social events throughout the year. The first grant was given to Liberty Humane Society on behalf of volunteers Carina De Vera and Ines Lopes in December 2011, and celebrated this past Thursday at Mulligan’s in Hoboken, where they raised an additional $256.

"I truly believe in Team Charity's mission and love what they are doing,” said Lopes.  “It is a wonderful organization that supports a cause I hold dear to my heart and I'm thankful the grant will be put to good use and aid in Liberty Humane Society's housing upgrade campaign."

Team Charity was formed in April 2007 by Nicole Fulmino and Maria Cruz with a goal to get young professionals more involved in philanthropy within their communities.  For the first few years,Team Charity would partner up with other organizations and raise money together.  But when Team Charity became an official non-profit in 2009, Fulmino, Cruz and board members Ritesh Shah and Jimmy Desai decided to form their own grant.

“The Ambassador Grant cannot be applied for by an employee of the organization,” explained Fulmino.  “By requiring a volunteer or other supporter of the organization to apply, we are enhancing our mission of getting young professionals more involved in their community.”

“We couldn’t have been happier that Ines and Carina provided such a compelling application for Liberty Humane Society,” said Cruz, who once fostered a dog from that shelter.  “Team Charity volunteers there often and it is always a favorite activity for our group.”

Infact, volunteering is more a focus of Team Charity than fundraising is.  The group has 2-4 volunteer events a month and about 6 social fundraising events a year.   They look forward to celebrating their five years as an organization this May.

For information on future events, visit www.teamcharity.org.

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One of the things we find so fun about Team Charity social events is the cast of characters is never quite the same.  Sure, we have the usual suspects - our board members, our closest friends etc.  But then there are always the variables. 

This time the variables were brought to you by Johnson and Johnson.  One of my brothers, James (who was, by all accounts, the life of the party on Friday) works at Johnson and Johnson down the street and he brought a few co-workers who brought a few friends.  It is so great to meet new people and spread the mission of Team Charity!  And though we may have be "shushed" for spontaneously breaking out into song, it was an awesome time!

We raised over $200 which will be split between offsetting the costs for our Play Ball for Miracles team and our Habitat for Humanity build. Thanks to Tula Lounge for extending happy hour and supporting TC!

What?  You thought I was kidding about the spontaneous singing?  :-)

It has been a crazy few weeks, but I simply have to post the story of a little dog a bunch of us met on January 22nd at the St. Hubert's Pet Therapy Evaluations in Madison.

Therapy pet evaluations are a series of tests to make sure that an animal is suitable for hospitals, nursing homes, schools etc.  The dog is asked to perform demonstrations of obedience and a basic good nature.  They have to sit, lay, stay, come and get exposed to a crowd, noise and medical equipment to make sure they wouldn't react aggressively.  The long and short of it is the dog needs to be trained. 

So when a woman this past evaluation passed with her first dog and then said she would be right back with the STROLLER containing her second dog, we all exchanged skeptical looks.  How could a dog pass this test in a stroller?  Are we really going to indulge this?

And then Finley came in.  And she won us over in a second.

Finley was not in a stroller because she was too prissy to walk.  Finley was in a stroller because she had trouble with mobility.  You see, Finley had been abandoned in the Bronx and was found with a broken leg, no teeth and weighing all of three pounds.

Her wonderful new owner (I apologize I forgot her name, but who was paying attention to anything else but this amazing pup!) got Finley to double her weight with a little TLC.  Finley's tongue perpetually hangs out of her mouth due to her having no teeth, however her owner is still managing to get her to eat.  Her owner is a nurse, and has already taken Finley to visit some patients.  Finley loves being held.  Her owner said stroke victims particularly connected to her, knowing she too, had been through something traumatic and had come out the other side okay.

Finley of course passed the test with flying colors.  Stroller and all. May we all have the resilience and spirit of little Finley. 

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, which can sometimes be filled with frustration and annoyance, I am lucky to have found the true spirit of Christmas through Team Charity.  I have witnessed a tremendous generosity of spirit through many people, but two people in particular spurred this generosity is so many others and I don't know how to begin to thank them.

The first is Laura Occhipinti of New Jersey Young Professionals.  For the second year in a row, Laura dedicated her holiday happy hours to Team Charity.  As most of you know, all through the year NJYP Happy Hours are free.  But during the holiday season, Laura requests that her members donate $5 to a worthwhile cause.  I was lucky enough to be able to attend all three events in New Brunswick, Morristown and Paramus.  Not only was everyone happy to donate, but some people donated extra and others happily joined our mailing list.  But what was perhaps the most exciting for me was overhearing people sing the praises of Team Charity and explain who we are to newbies.  You see, Team Charity's mission is to make philanthropy a part of the young professional's culture.  So to hear our message being spread, completely unprompted, well it warms my heart and makes what can seem like a second full-time job (albeit one I love) seem very worthwhile.  So thank you, Laura, for being the catalyst of spreading Team Charity's message and helping us to raise $1045!!!

The second person I want to thank is Todd Brogan.  Among many other things (including a new father to a beautiful baby girl that he and his wife Heather had four months ago), Todd is a DJ at McCarthys Bar & Grill in Bridgewater, NJ.  For the past seven years, Todd has thrown an event called "Drunken Santa" where he DJs the party dressed as Santa and well...gets drunk.  But every year he picks a different charity to benefit from this event and people donate all night.  I have never seen someone work a crowd the way Todd did.  He constantly reminded people of the awesome door prizes available to those who donate, he let people "pay to play" song requests and he even called people out in the crowd to make sure they had contributed.  We all had a blast and in one night, we raised $743!!!!  Thank you, Todd!

This has been a month filled with fantastic fundraisers and we are so grateful for all of the support!   Unfortunately, with everything going on this month, we had fewer volunteer events than usual.  Last night, however, we had our monthly visit to the Hoboken Shelter.  If I am being completely honest with you, I was dreading it all day.  It's been an exhausting week, Hoboken is so hard for me to get to by 6, parking is atrocious and I have about a million things I need to do before Christmas.  As it turns out, this is exactly what I needed to do before Christmas.   The Hoboken Shelter kitchen was packed with 6 of us from Team Charity and about 5 others as well.  The dining hall was packed as well.  After we prepared and cooked the meal, I hung back in the kitchen and let people who hadn't served before have that experience.  I could see in their faces that they "got" Team Charity's message too.   And of course, the true spirit of Christmas.  My advice to you is, if you can, stop your shopping and wrapping and do something kind for someone else.  Maybe it is volunteering, maybe it is donating,  maybe it is applying for the Ambassador Grant for your favorite charity (hint, hint) or maybe it is even letting the other car get the parking spot.  But whatever it is, I hope you do it, so you can feel as good as I do and you can pass the message along too.  Merry Christmas everyone.

Finalists Brian Cortese, Robert Hodulich, Matt Gubitosi and Ali Hoshyari.

Congrats to Team Throw Back aka Matt Gubitosi and Ali Hoshyari for claiming the Team Charity Beer Pong Championship!!  Along with the pride that comes with that, they also received $250 worth of product from Bliss Spa, thanks to Z100 and Bliss Spa!!!

They had tough competition in finalists Team All Day, Robert Hodulich and Brian Cortese.  There were a lot of great players in our completely full bracket!  Thank you to everyone who came out!

Check out our pictures from the event and read up on what we were raising money for last night!

This is one of those great moments where my worlds collide.  George Costanza may have hated moments like these, but I happen to love them!  While most of you know me as the girl from Team Charity, I spend most of my waking hours working for Children's Specialized Hospital Foundation.  I am the Children's Miracle Network Program Director and I travel around the state working with fantastic national, regional and local sponsors through the Children's Miracle Network Program.  All of the money raised through Children's Miracle Network sponsors in Central and North Jersey comes back to Children's Specialized Hospital.  Children's Specialized Hospital is the nation's largest pediatric rehabilition hospital in the United States.  We are the preeminent provider of rehabilitation for children with special needs. The hospital serves children affected by brain injury, spinal cord dysfunction and injury, premature birth, autism, developmental delays, and life-changing illnesses. Children's Specialized has eight sites in New Jersey and treats over 17,000 children each year.

I could go on and on talking about Children's Specialized Hospital and what a wonderful place it is to work, but I'm going to put my Team Charity hat back on and tell you what a great time we had there last night!  The Haunted Trail is an annual event hosted by Children's Specialized Hospital's Friday Night Fever group.  They transform the parking deck at our Mountainside location into a haunted trail with several scenes from a graveyard to hell's kitchen to the Salem witch hunt!  Team Charity took over the haunted mansion, and I have to say - it was even more fun than I thought it would be!  We had a armoured knight, a possessed mirror, two vampires, two grim reapers, and two live faces in picture frames!  With our behind the scenes crew included, there were ten of us scaring the day lights out of the general Mountainside community. Groups came through with either red necklaces (go easy on them) or green necklaces (scare the crap out of them) indicating their level of desired fright.  I think we gave them a great show!

On a personal note, this totally reminded me of the haunted house my brother James and I (along with our neighbor Danielle) used to create for the neighborhood growing up.  My oldest brother Christian used to get in on the action during show time, but James, Danielle and I would start making spooky decorations in August!  I can't remember exactly, but I want to say this went on for at least three years.  Last night made me so reminiscent of those days!  Right down to having to stop the show for crying children (haha - don't worry - there were only a few!).  

I have always loved Halloween and this past week of pumpkin carving and acting like ghouls with TC, really made me have that childhood feeling of fun that this season brings.  I hope you all are feeling it too and thanks to everyone who came out this week!  Have a safe, fun and happy Halloween everyone!!!  

Much <3 - Nicole

Last night, I had the pleasure of leading a group of Team Charity and NJYP members in a volunteer activity for Wagner Farm Arboretum.  We got together after work, rolled up our sleeves and carved pumpkins!  There is something about carving pumpkins that makes you feel like a kid again.  And I have to say, I think that is why all 16 of us showed up on a random Tuesday night - for that magic childlike feeling.

But of course, we were all also there for a good cause.  Though I must admit, I didn't realize at first how good a cause.  While looking into volunteering here with Team Charity, I read the mission statement.  So I did know that is was a non-profit suburban conservancy and learning center.  I knew it was dedicated to environmental and horticultural education.  But I learned yesterday, it is even more than an environmental haven.  Wagner Farm Arboretum grows vegetables that they give to food banks in Somerset County, through a project called, the "Giving Gardens".  Over the past four years, they have donated over 10,000 pounds of fresh produce to the Food Bank of Somerset County, Calvary Chapel’s Lighthouse Food Pantry of North Plainfield, and Star Fish in Plainfield.  Needless to say, I was impressed. 

So what does the fun of pumpkin carving have to do with all of this?  Well, Wagner Farm Arboretum is hosting its first Brite Nites/Haunted House showcase this year.  It is a fundraiser to help support all of the great work that they do throughout the year.  Bright Nites will take place October 22-24 and 29-31 from 6:00 - 9:00 p.m.  The event will feature a trail of carved a lighted pumpkins (that's where we came in!), a haunted house, food, beverages and more!  Click here for more information!

Thanks to everyone who came out!

Having just changed the design of our site about a year ago, we did not expect to have a new one again so soon.  However, the timing was right and we needed a change.  We wanted to be able to hear from you more and this site allows us to do so!  Post your events on our forum.  Tell us what good deed changed your day.  Help inspire philanthropy in others.

The application we used to build this site was easy, but not without its issues.  A big thanks to the NJYP mastermind, Laura Occhipinti, for her guidance during this process.

We'll be blogging about all sorts of things related to our events, your events and philanthropy in general.  Hope you enjoy!

We are creating a new, more interactive website.  Stay tuned for updates and let us know what you think!