Boston Bruins to Receive Merit Award from EPA

Direct from the Boston Bruins website, yesterday's honor of merit from the EPA as a team committed to bettering the environment truly is a wonderful achievement for the team. There are few events that I go to where I see, what appears to be, so much waste and to know that the Bruins are taking steps to help local people in need makes me so overjoyed to be a fan!

Here is the full text from the article (to read online please follow the link above):

BOSTON, MA – On Wednesday, May 11 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will award the Boston Bruins with the Environmental Merit Award during a special ceremony in Boston’s Faneuil Hall beginning at 1:00 p.m. The Environmental Merit Award honors individuals and groups who have shown particular ingenuity and commitment in their efforts to preserve the region's environment. Boston Bruins Foundation Director of Development Bob Sweeney will be accepting the award on behalf of the Bruins organization.

At the start of the 2010 -11 season, the Bruins joined the NHL’s green initiative and partnered with Rock and Wrap It Up! to help fight hunger throughout the United States and Canada. The Boston Bruins committed to work with Rock and Wrap it Up! to pack up all prepared but unsold concession food and give it to local shelters and places in need citywide. To date, the Bruins have donated 4,950 meals and 6,950 pounds of food to the Boston Rescue Mission. Including TD Garden’s contributions, a cumulative total of 15.5 tons of food has been donated to the Boston Rescue Mission.

The Rock and Wrap it Up! project was founded by Syd Mandelbaum, a forensic scientist who in 1991 combined his love of music with a passion for wiping out hunger by redistributing leftover food from rock concerts. The program now works with more than 150 bands, 200 schools and universities and 50 sports franchises. It has collected more than 100 million pounds of food to feed more than 200 million people.

19 environmental awards will be given to Massachusetts environmental groups, individuals, businesses, non-profit and government agencies in Boston’s Faneuil Hall as the EPA presents its annual Environmental Merit Awards for 2011.

The Merit Awards recognize valuable contributions to environmental awareness and problem solving and are a unique way that EPA can recognize individuals and groups that are making significant impacts on environmental quality in distinct ways.

For more informaton on any of the groups mentioned please visit their websites:

EPA
Boston Bruins
NHL
Rock and Wrap It Up!

Ice and Dice Casino Night Fundraiser for Boston Bruins Foundation

Last night my aunt, her friend, and myself, all headed to Kowloon Chinese restaurant in Saugus, Massachusetts for the third annual Ice & Dice Casino Night. Tickets were only $30 and I knew the proceeds were going to a super worthy cause -- The Boston Bruins Foundation.

The Foundation is a not for profit that provides grant monies in the realms of athletic, academic, health and community outreach to various area children’s charities. For example, they have donated to The Children’s Room, a Youth All-City Choir, The Mayors Cup Roller Hockey program and Boston Partners in Education among many, many others.

Last night there were casino tables with all kinds of games but we stuck to a game with dice (it had an hourglass type cage with dice inside it that spun and you bet on numbers) and blackjack (my personal favorite). Bruins alumni, friends, family and many others were present to celebrate the evening for a great cause.

The night began with everyone receiving $1000 worth of chips and then at the end of the night the three people with the most chips won some pretty cool prizes, like a stick signed by the whole team. Then on the way out the ladies (and some of the men grabbed for their own ladies!) were rewarded by some nail polish (5 bottles!) donated by ProStrong.

Because gambling for cash is not legal in Massachusetts all the money was fun money but in order to raise even more, there were a few items in a live auction as well as a slew of silent auction items. Our friend even won one of the bids!

All proceeds from last night’s festivities went to further support the Foundation's Pan-Mass Challenge Bike Team's 2010 donation to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. I don’t know the final tally but at one point our emcee for the evening, Bob Sweeney, Bruins alum and the Foundation’s Director of Development, told us they were in the neighborhood of $50,000 in total. Outstanding!

It was a really fun night and although I’m not much into gambling, the “fun money” atmosphere kept the mood light. Thinking about where the proceeds would be donated made me so happy to have been a part of it all. Thanks Bruins for your continued support of the youth of our fine city of Boston and thanks for a fantastic evening!

Interested in donating, volunteering or just finding out more about the Foundation? Head on over to their Donations Page for more information.