Dick’s Drive-In has been running its Change4Charity program at its five Seattle-area locations since 1998, collecting extra change from customers for a variety of local and international causes. Last week the local restaurant chain announced that the program passed the half-million dollar mark, raising over $500,000 collectively between all locations to support Seattle area homeless shelters and disaster relief efforts.

“Those little change boxes have added up to big donations,” Dick’s Drive-In vice president Jim Spady said in a statement. “We want to thank each and every customer who has taken the time to drop their extra burger change into the Change4Charity boxes.”

In the 13 years since the Change4Charity program began, donations have gone toward a number charities, including Compass Housing, Family Support Network, Fare Start, First Place, Mary’s Place, ROOTS, Saint Martin de Porres Shelter, and Seattle Night Watch.

Through the program special donations have also been made to a number of disaster relief efforts. Top months for giving through Change4Charity have included Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in September 2005, relief efforts following the Haitian earthquake in January and February 2010, and aid for those affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March of this year–the single largest month in donations, in which over $21,000 was raised and directed to Japan through the Seattle Red Cross and World Vision in Federal Way.

The Second Annual StandUp For Kids Charity Chowdown is happening this Wednesday, July 13 from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. at McMenamins Queen Anne, located at 200 Roy Street.

StandUp For Kids is a 100 percent donation-driven, all-volunteer-run non-profit organization that works to help homeless and at-risk youth in cities across the country. McMenamin’s hosted the first Charity Chowdown with the Seattle chapter of StandUp last year, with huge success – the inaugural event raised $2,500 from raffle and McMenamins contributions. This year the group hopes to raise $3,500. To help reach this goal, McMenamins will be donating 50 percent of all proceeds from food and beverage sales during the event to StandUp For Kids – Seattle.

Event information:

Along with the great food and drinks, there will also be a lot of raffle prizes to be won! StandUp For Kids – Seattle has partnered with several businesses, including our biggest supporters, Rosemary for Remembrance Spa and Red Mango, to provide LOTS of great raffle prizes for fans of StandUp for Kids – Seattle.

This year, we have an event goal of raising $3,500. The proceeds from raffle ticket sales will go towards the outreach efforts of StandUp For Kids – Seattle and the administrative costs that come with running a non-profit. StandUp For Kids – Seattle is a 100% donation-driven, all-volunteer run non-profit organization.

In addition to Rosemary for Remembrance Spa and Red Mango, we have fun and exciting prizes donated by the following businesses: Lindsey Lee Photography, Gregg’s Cycles, Woodland Park Zoo, Ride the Ducks, Groupon and Pandora Radio.

Bonus chances to win prizes go out to everyone who comes out to the event! Yup, the prize wheel is back!! Big thanks go out to FunRent.com for donating the use of the prize wheel for a second year in a row!

Raffle prize winners will also have a chance to win prizes donated by individual donors, which include manicure and spa gift certificates and StandUp For Kids – Seattle swag!

Five dollars gets you six raffle tickets, which can be purchased in advance through Brown Paper Tickets here. Check out scenes from last year’s StandUp For Kids Charity Chowdown at the Seattle chapter’s Facebook page.

Earlier this month the iconic Queen Anne restaurant Canlis celebrated its 60th anniversary with a community wide challenge. In the days leading up to the celebration, brothers Mark and Brian Canlis had a little fun giving away chances for people to dine at the famed restaurants at 1950s prices—they signed 50 menus from 1950 and hid them throughout the Seattle area, releasing daily clues to the hiding places (which usually required some pretty quirky knowledge of Pacific Northwest history) via the @Canlis Twitter account and the Canlis Facebook page.

The restaurant held a private dinner party celebrating its 60th on December 12, and invited 230 local influential non-profits, private foundations, artists, business leaders and politicians, who all are making a positive impact on the Seattle community, to attend. Focusing on the importance of community giving and generosity, the restaurant used the evening as an opportunity to “give a gift to the city”, a $500,000 Matching Campaign for non-profit organizations in which Canlis will match up to $500,000 in gift certificates purchased from the restaurant for donation to any non-profit organization in the city.

“Alice and I are so proud of our sons for continuing the Canlis legacy of community philanthropy and choosing to celebrate our 60th birthday with those who are making a difference in this community,” Chris Canlis, son of Canlis founder Peter Canlis, said to the crowd. “The people in this room are the revolutionaries—the influencers who are defining Seattle in a new way: by its generosity.”

“Generosity is not a financial word,” said owner Mark Canlis. “The Matching Campaign is the third leg of the stool: the model invites the people of our city to partner with businesses in order to support Seattle’s non-profit movement.”

“Every person has been given something they can be generous with,” he said as he introduced Canlis’ own giving campaign.

And that’s not all. Today, Friday, December 31, the 50 winners from the menu hunt are taking part in another local scavenger hunt, this time for a grand prize of dinner for life at the restaurant.

In the spirit of generosity, these participants will be competing for the opportunity to give this dinner for life away every year to a person or charitable organization that embodies the spirit of philanthropy.

The crazy-costumed menu finders are Tweeting their way through the hunt. Follow that here.

Seattle historic steamship, the Virginia V, will be hosting three holiday cruises in December, of which a portion of each will support Seattle-based non-profit organization Forgotten Children’s Fund.

Aboard the 125-foot Virginia V, passengers may enjoy the sights and sounds of the holidays from the water, including the annual Christmas Ships Festival, and help to spread the holiday spirit to those less fortunate.

Started by a letter in 1976 written to Santa Claus from a child who missed out on Christmas, the Forgotten Children’s Fund is an organization that steps in to help those families who have fallen on hard times and receive little or no aid from other organizations. Families are referred by schools, churches, police agencies, and others. More than 1000 volunteers receive letters from families and then deliver upwards of 20,000 toys, books, clothing, blankets and other necessities at the holidays.

“We’re thrilled to receive support from the Virginia V,” volunteer Gordon Fouts, who has been with the organization for 35 years, said in a statement. “The Forgotten Children’s Fund is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the season in a unique way while helping families who aren’t receiving other types of aid. Through generous donations from community groups like Virginia V, we’re already buying new toys, bicycles, winter coats and food that our Santa Claus and Elf volunteers will distribute at Christmas.”

These three holiday cruises will take place on December 2, 18 and 23, and will depart from South Lake Union Park, 860 Terry Avenue North, aboard the Virginia V.  Details and ticket information can be found here.

If you like both Trophy Cupcakes and Bumbershoot, here’s a way to get your sugar fix and help kids go to the music and arts festival in September.

Stop in to any of Trophy’s three locations to pick up limited-edition cupcakes, featuring designs by some of the artists whose work adorned Bumbershoot posters and artwork over the past 40 years. The cupcakes will be available through September 6.

The Bumbershoot cupcakes sell for $3.50 each, and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Send a Kid program, which partners with Art with Heart and Arts Corps to help send underserved youth to Bumbershoot with an accompanying adult.

Traffic at many intersections in the city could be a little snarled today. Seattle firefighters will be asking drivers to “Fill the Boot” fundraisers for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Drivers are encouraged to toss cash, checks and change into the firefighters boots. Last year the fundraiser broke the northwest region record by collecting $131,000. Ballard’s own station 18 collected a department record of $24,662. Not only did this earn them bragging rights, they also received the “Coffee for a Year” prize. (Thank you Derek for the tip!)

Two of Queen Anne’s own, Sarah Brice and Bethany Juchem, will be receiving Greater Seattle Local Humanitarian Awards from the Hope for Many Foundation for their “leadership and discovering new ways to serve and promote giving” in 2009. Hope for Many representative Brendi Amarcotti said that five award recipients citywide have been selected because they have all  “either raised a substantial amount of money for their charities through creative resources, started non-profits and/or involved themselves in Film Making to advance their cause.”

“Sarah Brice and Bethany Juchem (both of Queen Anne) together collaborated on a black and white short film about Seattle Homelessness entitled, ‘Isolation.’ Bethany Juchem founded a non profit in 2009 called Help for Heroin, which is making steps to provide education to Seattle School Districts about Heroin abuse and is lobbying on a State Level to have the rehab laws changed for Opiate Abusers from 28 days to a more useful 90 days. Sarah Brice wrote a play entitled ‘My Seattle’ which has been performed by non actors in Pike Market over the past 3 months, every 2nd and 4th Sunday portraying the need to help and support our fellow Seattlites, Homeless, Handicapped, Rich or Poor,” Amarcotti said via email.

Humanitarian awards will also be given to Marcie Ayala from Ballard, Aimee Carpino from Capitol Hill, and Trin Ma from the International District. All five recipients will be awarded plaques acknowledging their giving, “even if on a small scale,” according to Amarcotti, at a ceremony to be held at Seattle Center in mid-July alongside an outdoor showing of two documentaries made by one of the recipients. (We’ll keep you posted as soon as we have the date and specific event information).

The Seattle’s Hope For Many Foundation’s website is still under construction, however Amarcotti says the organization is actively geared toward “helping businesses live up to their Charitable Potential.”

The 3rd Annual Seattle Brain Cancer Walk is happening this Saturday, June 26 at Seattle Center’s Mural Amphitheatre from 7 t0 10:30 a.m., where organizers, volunteers and family and friends of those affected by brain cancer will walk to build awareness, raise money and advance the search for a cure.

Walkers will get to choose between making two loops around the longer course, 1.1 miles, or the shorter course, .3 miles. The entire event will take place on the Seattle Center campus.

The Seattle Brain Cancer Walk was founded in 2008 by a group of committed volunteers and families, and has since raised over $400,000 for research, comprehensive care and clinical trials for brain cancer patients in the Pacific Northwest.

This year the Brain Cancer Walk has already raised $331,043.08. Online registration for the event will close at 5 p.m. today, Thursday, June 24. To register click here. For more information on walk-day, click here.

Two dozen local food bloggers will be doing their part to help end childhood hunger “one cookie at a time” by participating in the Great American Bake Sale for “Share Our Strength,” a nationwide effort by the culinary industry to raise childhood hunger awareness through nutritional programming.

Spearheaded by Queen Anne’s own Frantic Foodie blogger, event organizer and all around food expert Keren Brown, the team of Seattle-area food bloggers will be hosting a bake sale full of treats of their own creation this Saturday, April 17 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Lower Queen Anne Metropolitan Market, located at 100 Mercer St.

The following local food bloggers will be participating in the event: Gluten-Free Girl, Cakespy, Danatreat, Not Martha, Fresh Picked Seattle, A half cup.com, Pink Bites, Salty Seattle, Bring to Boil, Cornichon, The Old Hen, Northwest Stir, Mirrormirrorontheweb, Satisfythecraving, The Flying Salmon, Floraandflying, MusicandCats, Seattle Weekly, Chelsea Lin, City Search Editor, PurplehouseDirt and Teaandcookies.

Each blogger will be bringing two dozen cookies and their recipes to sell at the event so that “Readers and fans will have the opportunity to taste the baked goods from their favorite food blogs,” according to Brown.

All proceeds will support Share Our Strength and the organization’s work to end childhood hunger in America, specifically through assistance and funding for after-school and summer nutrition programs. “Summer is an especially difficult time, because the children facing hunger in America, nearly 17 million children, will no longer have access to the school-based meals they rely on,” said Bill Shore, executive director of Share Our Strength, in a press release this week.

Metropolitan Market will be providing free parking for bake sale shoppers. For more information check out Frantic Foodie.

Queen Anne Rotary will be hosting a Post Tax-Day Shredding Event for charity this Saturday, April 17 at the Upper Queen Anne Safeway, at 2100 Queen Anne Ave N.

For a tax-deduction donation (recommended $10 per banker-box), you can have your documents safely and securely shredded. All proceeds will go to the Queen Anne Helpline, a local non-profit with the mission “To promote personal dignity, self-respect, hope, and an independent quality of life to our neighbors by providing supportive social services to those who need assistance.”

Document collection will begin at noon, shredding will happen from 2 to 4 p.m. For more information, contact James Gram at jimgram@windermere.com.

Whole Foods is hosting Chocolate Fest, a store-wide tasting event, tomorrow, Thursday, February 11 from 5 to 7 p.m. at three of its Seattle locations, including the Interbay store, at 2001 15th Ave W. Interested parties can purchase passports to explore the store full of chocolate concoctions for $5. All proceeds from the event will be going to Heroes for Homeless, a local non-profit dedicated to assisting homeless people living on the streets of Seattle find safe and organized shelter.

Before joining their friends and family to watch the Superbowl on Sunday, Queen Anne parents, teachers and students volunteered their time running the Help for Haiti Rummage Sale, raising just shy of $20,000 for post-earthquake aide.

This is the second time Coe Elementary, John Hay and McClure Middle School have gotten together to run a major sale event for charity. The three schools first teamed up in 2005, just after the tsunami, and successfully raised $10,000. When the earthquake hit Haiti, the organizers decided to run the event again. This time they raised $19,200.

“The same group all came together and decided to do it again,” said organizers and former John Hay parent Mimi Gan. Their goal was to beat their previous record. “We’ve almost doubled it!” she said.

As for the sale itself, items varied from used toys and clothes, to housewares, baked goods (the in-house bake sale raised $755 alone) and even some last-minute surprise donations, including a car! According to Gan, the principal of Coe Elementary, Mr. Elliott, drove his car to the rummage sale and began taking bids, eventually selling it for $350.

“I don’t know how old it was,” Gan said. “He was very honest about it – there were some things wrong with it. But it sold!”

(This is Mr. Elliott’s fifth and last year at Coe. He will be moving to the new Old Hay, Queen Anne Elementary for the 2010-2011 school year).

Volunteers said the rummage sale stayed relatively busy from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., when the crowds were taken over by football frenzy.

“We had a steady flow of people most of the day. At the end, we did a Craig’s list blast to get rid of as much as we could. We advertised $5 for what you could take out,” said fellow parent and volunteer Stacy Lawson. As for the results, “We were ecstatic,” she said.

“It was great fun,” Gan said. “It was a great community builder and people were so generous.”

According to Gan the money will be dispersed evenly between three aid organizations, the American Red Cross, Partners in Health and Project Hope.

(Thanks to Eileen Nishi for the pictures!)

Yogalife‘s Queen Anne location is offering a class from 1 to 2 p.m. tomorrow, Saturday, February 6 benefiting “Stand With Haiti”, a project of Partners In Health, an organization that has been working to improve health care in Haiti for over 20 years. Tomorrow’s class will be donation-only, and open to individuals and families with members of all ages. Read more about Liv’s family yoga classes here. For more information, call (206) 283-9642.

This is just a reminder that the Help for Haiti Rummage Sale, a joint venture between neighborhood schools Coe Elementary, John Hay and McClure Middle School, is this Sunday, February 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Coe gym (located at located at 2424 7th Ave W).

Donations of gently used goods to be sold at the rummage sale can be made from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Friday, February 5 at Coe and Hay, and on Saturday, February 6 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Coe. All proceeds will benefit the American Red Cross.

There will also be a bake sale at the rummage sale, headed by the folks at John Hay. Baked goods can be dropped off at Coe Elementary on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Parents and kids interested in volunteering their time at the bake sale should contact Kim Clements at 206-963-9589 or kclements@jasdesignbuild.com, or simply show up between 10 .m. and 3 p.m. on Sunday. More information here.

To get involved, contact the following representatives:

John Hay: Susan Sweeney at susweeney@seattleschools.org and Lynn Baker at lybaker@seattleschools.org:

Coe: Becky Lederman at lederman4@msn.com, Lisa Cole at davidandlisacole@mac.com, and Stacy Lawson at slawson7@gmail.com.

McClure: Margarita Vanegas at mvvanegas@seattleschools.org.

General  Information: Lindsay Foody at honeyfoody@yahoo.com, and Mimi Gan at mimigan@msn.com or (206) 390-2312.

Kids from Coe recently ran a bake sale for Haiti, raising $1,645 in one afternoon!

Martha Downey recently moved to Queen Anne from View Ridge, and for her housewarming she’s decided to host a bake sale in her new neighborhood to raise money for those those in need in Haiti. A student at SCCC, Martha believes it is important to help not only those in your community, but other around the world as well. She wrote,

I chose to do this fundraiser because I finally feel old enough and able enough to do good for people outside of my community, and it has affected people I interact with daily (I have a classmate whose whole family is either in or from Haiti) and I wanted to give back and feel like I made an impact instead of just sitting back and watching it happen.

Martha and a couple friends will be set up outside the closed Peet’s on Queen Anne Ave N and Boston St. (the same spot kids from Coe Elementary held their bake sale last weekend) this Saturday, January 30 from 12 to 4:30 p.m. (or until they run out) selling homemade goodies.

As for the charity the proceeds will be going to, Martha says she’s still deciding between UNICEF and the Red Cross. If you want to help Martha with her bake sale or make a donation, contact her via her Twitter page.

Over the weekend a QueenAnneView reader wrote in, after having been approached and asked to donate money to a seemingly worthy fundraiser, concerned about its legitimacy–benevolent neighborhood donation or fraud? Derek wrote on Sunday, January 24,

This evening a couple middle aged folks were wandering around asking for $10 donations, to go toward a family that lives somewhere in the neighborhood. Allegedly, a 3 year old fell out a window around Christmas time. Now the family is in need of financial support for the “medication” the girl needs to be on. I asked several questions, the woman was pretty quick to answer most of them. The only thing I thought was strange was that I offered to write a check to help and she didn’t know if she could accept a check. She was going to ask somebody and get back to me in fifteen minutes. She never came back. There would be absolutely no reason the couldn’t accept checks, right?

Derek wasn’t sure if he was being paranoid, and wondered if any other Queen Anne residents had had a similar encounter. As it happens, a reader of our sister-site, MagnoliaVoice, was asked to make a donation to the same cause just last night. Katherine wrote to Magnolia Voice,

This evening around 7:30 a man rang my doorbell to solicit funds for a Magnolia family. The man was selling stuffed animals that he said were donated, for $10. He said the fundraiser was for a Magnolia family whose child fell out of a three story window. While I am all for supporting Magnolia families in need I am not convinced that this isn’t a scam.

Neither QueenAnneView or MagnoliaVoice have heard any reports about a 3-year-old that fell out of a window around Christmas – on Christmas Eve, according to what Derek was told. Does anyone know anything about this story? Please comment below with any information you may have.

Kids from Coe Elementary will be hosting a bake sale tomorrow outside the Starbucks on Queen Anne Ave N and Boston St. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to raise money for the victims of the Haiti earthquake. Red Square Yoga owner and mom of two at the school, Stacy Lawson, is helping to organize the event. She says Coe has a long track record of charitable work in the community and abroad, powered first and foremost by the students.

“We have a real history of doing social justice work on a level the kids can appreciate,” Lawson said, noting that the school has run a number of succsesful fundraisers in the past, raising over $800 at a bake sale for their sister organization, an all girls school in Afghanistan, and over $10,000 at a rummage sale benefiting tsunami victims.

According to Lawson, the events are about more than just coming together to help those in need – they’re also about teaching students, from an early age, that they can make a difference in the world around them. “The kids play a big part in the organization,” she said. “They host the sale. If they’re old enough, they can help with the baking. They post the fliers. They really understand that they can help impact things that go on around the world. It’s much more about their effort.”

Although Coe is teaming up with John Hay and McClure in just a couple of weeks to host a rummage sale benefiting Haiti, the parents and students from Coe decided that there was more they could do to help the country in wake of such a devastating earthquake, beginning plans for the bake sale on Tuesday.

“We decided that we need to put some focus on Haiti,” Lawson said. Though there will be parents volunteers supervising the event, the kids will be walking up and down Queen Anne Ave promoting the sale and talking about the group the proceeds will benefit, Partners in Health, a non-profit organization founded by Paul Farmer that has been working to support advocacy and health care in Haiti for over 20 years.

“Really this is about the kids. They’ll be on the street and they’ll be walking around and trying to get people to go come to the bake sale,” Lawson said. “We encourage them to talk about the issues and speak to about the organization that we’re contribute to.”

Lawson says they chose Partners in Health because of their longstanding work in helping Haiti from the inside out. “He’s on the ground in Haiti and he’s doing work,” she said. “[Paul Farmer is] not just about bringing in international relief teams, but he’s about helping locals solve their own problems.”

If you can’t make it to the bake sale tomorrow, you can still help by participating in the rummage sale between Coe, John Hay and McClure, which will be held on on Sunday February 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Coe gym, located at 2424 7th Ave W. You can donate gently used items for the sale from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Friday, February 5 at Coe and Hay, and on Saturday, February 6 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Coe.

Lawson hopes that the rummage sale, which has been a successful fundraiser in the past, will again raise a large sum. “We feel that even in this down-turned economy, this is still something people can do, buying second-hand,” she said.

For more details and contact information for the rummage sale, click here. To support the bake sale, swing by Queen Anne Ave and Boston St. between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. tomorrow.

In November Queen Anne Manor, an assisted living community at the top of the hill, collected used clothing for disabled youth and adults. Last month they helped homeless workers get through the winter by donating gloves, mittens, hats and scarves. And true to their charitable commitment, this month they are holding a toy collection drive for the Seattle Children’s Hospital. Starting tomorrow, January 6 through Saturday, February 6 approved toys (see below) can be dropped off at the Manor, located at 100 Crockett St. to be donated.

“These toys (new or gently used) are for the patients who are there under dire, in many cases, life threatening circumstances and for many months at a time,” said Queen Anne Manor Marketing Director Bethany Leigh Juchem.

Approved toys for children with the greatest needs include fuzzy coloring posters, small Lego sets, Brio trains (no track), nail polish, coloring books, arts and crafts kits, playing cards, tactile toys for all ages, Disney/Pixar DVDs, PG-13 DVDs, gift cards and Spanish, Vietnamese and Russian videos, books and music. Approved toys for toddlers include light, sound and pop-up toys, mirrors, links, rattles, teething rings, board books, sound books, sorting/stacking toys, busy boxes, washable squeeze toys, beginning cars and trucks and Fisher-Price Little People play sets. (No infant gyms please).

The Manor will deliver the donated toys to the Children’s Hospital on Sunday, February 7. For more information on the Manor’s philanthropic work and details on approved toys, visit their website.