Ray Romano and Mastercard have teamed up with Stand Up To Cancer to raise money for cancer research. So now, every time you go out to eat, you could be helping to fight cancer.

“Raising money for life-saving research can be as easy as paying your tab with MasterCard. Use your MasterCard® card when dining-out or taking-out from July 12 – September 1, 2011, and you can help put an end to cancer. MasterCard will make a donation to Stand Up To Cancer up to $4 million. One precious cent at a time.”

Learn more about this promotion here.

Lacking access to clean water isn’t just inconvenient, it has a devastating impact on communities throughout the developing world. Each year, 3.5 million people die from water-related diseases. Nearly 84 percent of them are children.

Today, groups like Water.org, a nonprofit organization dedicated to water and sanitation accessibility, have simple, cost-effective tools to bring safe water and sanitation to people who desperately need them. Levi’s and Water.org are teaming up and, with your help, hope to bring a lifetime of clean water to 8,000 people.

Learn more and pledge your support by visiting Levi’s Facebook page here.

You need your house cleaned. People fighting cancer need all the help they can get.  Hoover needs Facebook Likes.  Presto! It’s a win win win situation up in here.

According to Cleaning for a Reason, “Fighting cancer is difficult enough, but living with it is even tougher – and that’s where the Cleaning for A Reason Foundation steps in.  This  nonprofit offers free professional housecleaning, and maid services to improve the lives of women undergoing treatment for cancer – any type of cancer. ”

Hoover (you know, the vacuum cleaner people) are “proud sponsors” of Cleaning for a Reason.  “Hoover® will contribute $1 to the organization (up to $25,000) for every new Hoover or Cleaning For A Reason Facebook connection.”

You can Like Hoover’s Facebook page here.

You can learn more about Cleaning for a Reason when you visit their website here.

If you are interested in supporting Cleaning for a Reason, they suggest we emphasize “the need for professional cleaning service companies participating in the foundation. The more maid services that participate, the more women we can serve. There is no shortage of women with cancer requesting our services.”

After much anticipation and “I think I know what it is”, buzzing around the nation, TOMS revealed its newest member to the “one for one” family.

Eyeglasses. Such a simple product, yet so necessary to ensure quality of life. The new product is more than just a pair of eyeglasses because it represents another chapter for TOMS and their vision (wink) to address as many needs as possible across the globe.

The website features classic wayfarer and aviator sunglass styles for men and women with the added fun of a virtual try-on feature. The iconic TOMS stripe is hand painted and cleverly wrapped on the glasses’ arms and will soon be the new status symbol for fashion and socially conscious people everywhere.

165 million people have vision impairment, yet 80% of those cases are preventable or treatable. TOMS is focused (wink) on working with local NGO’s and initiatives to bring glasses to the most remote and neediest areas.

Last September, TOMS celebrated a huge milestone: 1 million shoes have been donated. Let’s help TOMS put the world in focus and reach their next goal: 1 million pairs of eyeglasses given to those in need.

See more Positivebrand articles about TOMS here.

See the original article from Milkshake here.

Plastic. We don’t want it in our oceans or our landfills, but it might be exactly what we need in our delivery trucks.

UPS has more than 70,000 vehicles on the road, so gains in fuel efficiency can save the company a lot of money—and reduce carbon emissions for the rest of us. Their latest experiment is a prototype CV-23 truck, which has body panels made of ABS plastic instead of sheet aluminum. That means it’s about 1,000 lbs lighter than a standard truck and can run on a smaller engine. The upshot? It’s 40 percent more fuel efficient. The folks at Triple Pundit estimate it gets more than 14 miles per gallon, which might not sound like a lot, but could save around 84 million gallons of fuel annually.

Read the entire story here.

Wells Fargo and Habitat for Humanity share a vital goal: to make the dream of homeownership available, affordable and sustainable for the health and vitality of our communities. Wells Fargo has provided local Habitat affiliates $63 million in funding and more than 4 million volunteer hours since 1993.

As the lead sponsor of Habitat for Humanity’s 27th annual Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project, Wells Fargo contributed $750,000 and 150 volunteers to the building event.

In 2010, Wells Fargo joined Habitat as a national partner with an $8 million contribution to Habitat’s Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative. The NRI program constructs, repairs and rehabilitates affordable housing for low-income families in markets hit hard by foreclosures. Wells Fargo exceeded this pledge by nearly 50 percent, bringing its total funding to $11.8 million.

Learn more about Wells Fargo’s commitment to communities, here.

When we brush our teeth or wash our hair, we waste a ton of water.  Most of us know we should be turning off the water when we can.  But old habits die hard.  Here comes some new toothpaste, shampoo, and shower gel products that help to remind us to conserve water every time we use their product just by reading the brand name on their packaging: Stop The Water While Using Me.

“We thought about water. And how we consume it every day. We came up with products that treat our natural resources responsibly through the ingredients they use, the way they are packaged and their manufacturing. They encourage people openly to save water when using the products.”

884 million people in the world do not have access to safe water. This is roughly one in eight of the world’s population.

The average North American uses 400 liters of water every day.

The average person in the developing world uses 10 liters of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking. (Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC))

On current trends over the next 20 years humans will use 40% more water than they do now. (UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

Learn more about Stop The Water While Using Me, here.

Last Tuesday (March 8th) was National Breakfast Day in America.  Kellogg’s hosted a kick-off event that morning with actress Melissa Joan Hart and its beloved cereal brand mascots, Tony the Tiger and Snap! Crackle! and Pop!, at New York’s Grand Central Terminal.

Kellogg’s is kicking off its mammoth community initiative to feed America’s children, offering one million free breakfasts as part of its Snap, Text and Tweet campaign.

The bigger problem the campaign is addressing is indeed alarming: One in four children in the US starts the day without a morning meal according to the Agriculture Department — and Kellogg’s is determined to do something about it.

Promoted on its individual brands’ and corporate Facebook pages, and on Twitter with the #shareurbreakfast tag, the idea is that a breakfast will be donated for every photo uploaded to shareyourbreakfast.com showing your breakfast.

Photos can also be texted with the word “Share” to 21534. Every photo, however received, will be translated into a free meal served through participating school programs through July 31.

Catch the rest of the story from Brand Channel, here.

Check out ShareYourBreakfast.com here.

GE is putting its imagination to good use again.  They are trying to reduce home energy use by 70 percent. General Electric is beginning a new experiment in a handful of test cities to see if it can achieve dramatic reductions in home energy use.

The program will be implemented in the western U.S., including the cities of Phoenix, Sacramento and San Diego. Each participating house will be equipped with solar panels, energy-efficient appliances, LED lights and one of GE’s Nucleus home energy management systems to rule them all.

Read the entire article from Good Magazine at Good.is

In an early episode of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, Jamie is visiting with a class of first graders showing them raw vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes, beets, and cucumbers.  The kids have no idea what these things are.  It’s pretty scary to witness.  It’s the kind of situation that REAL School Gardens is hoping to fix.

“REAL School Gardens partners with high-poverty elementary schools to create learning gardens that become an integral part of their teaching culture and community. We support the design and installation of school gardens, train teachers to use them to improve children’s learning and build community around them to nurture support for urban schools. When teachers take learning outdoors, children achieve greater success in school by becoming more engaged learners, more effective team members and also healthier people.”

This Wednesday, March 9, Fort Worth-based REAL School Gardens is getting a boost from all the Chipotle restaurants in North Texas.  The deal: 100% of all proceeds of the sales from 5:30 to 7:30 on March 9th will go to supporting REAL School Gardens’ programs.

Learn more about REAL School Gardens, here.