When we opened CRAFTkitchen, one of our main goals was to find ways to use our culinary skills to support our community and promote great causes right here at home. We’re so excited to announce, then, that we’re an official culinary partner of Wine Women and Shoes, an annual findraising event benefitting St. Jude’s Ranch for Children.
St. Jude’s Ranch works to transform the lives of abused children by providing them safe housing, nurturing care and therapeutic guidance at a beautiful 40-acre campus in Boulder City. The Ranch currently houses around 35 children and provides programs and services to many more across our state. “House Parents” and dedicated, trained professionals provide children at the Ranch (ranging from newborns to 18-year-olds) everything from individualized therapeutic treatment, to healthy family dinners each evening, to social guidance that helps young adults transition to living on their own as self-sufficient, civic-minded citizens.
As part of its Residential Foster Care Program, the Ranch houses six children in each of its homes on campus—and each unit functions just like a traditional family, offering children stability and opportunities they’ve often never before had. Children in the program go to public school, participate in sports and after-school activities, work on homework with the House Parents and have dinner together as a family every evening. One of the distinct components of this program—and something that really encouraged us to get involved with St. Jude’s Ranch for Children—is the Ranch’s ability to preserve sibling relationships. Under its Residential Foster Care Program, siblings see each other daily, play together, go to school together and get to live alongside one another at the gorgeous campus.
St. Jude’s Ranch for Children also offers a number of other programs (like its Transitional Living Program for young adults and its Pregnant and Parenting Teen Program), and each one takes such care to provide its participants with effective guidance and support, tailored to their individual needs and skillsets. Needless to say, becoming involved with this cause was an absolute no-brainer for our team--and we’re counting down the hours until we get to give a little back at Wine Women & Shoes to the people who’ve dedicated their lives to helping our community’s most vulnerable children.
Wine, Women and Shoes takes place Sunday, April 30 from 1-5 p.m. at 7770 Dean Martin Drive in Las Vegas. The event will include wine and food tastings, a fashion show, luxury cars on display, designer boutique shopping, a silent auction and celebrity meet-and-greets. You can purchase general admission and VIP tickets online.
You’ll find us there at our CRAFTkitchen booth, serving up our Citrus, Lump Crab & Avocado Salad as well as our Heirloom Beet, Ricotta Salata, Crushed Pistachio Salad—and we’d love to see you there in support of this great cause. We also want to extend a special thank you to Michelle Howard and our local friends at Flora Couture for co-sponsoring the display at our booth.
If you can’t make it to the event, but want to get involved with St. Jude’s Ranch, you can learn more about donating to the Ranch here. The Ranch is open to the public and offers a really great thrift store for visitors. We definitely recommend taking a tour of St. Jude’s Ranch next time you’re in Boulder City—you’ll be blown away by both the sheer beauty of the property and the energy and spirit of everyone you meet there.
We hope to see you this Sunday, Henderson and Las Vegas. Come out and celebrate with us in the name of this unbelievable cause!
