Women, Wine & Wellness
Who: Palate Partners & Vin Fatales
What: Women, Wine & Wellness
Where: Verve Wellness, 142 Sixth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222
When: Wednesday, March 26, 2008, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Cost: $10 for Vin Fatales members, $15 general public (a women only event).
For more information: 412-391-8502, or
www.palatepartners.com
Detail:
Palate Partners, Vin Fatales, Verve Wellness, Combined Insurance, Digene and local actress Laurie Klatscher (City Theatre's "Vagina Monologues") join together for an evening of wine tasting and womens' wellness to benefit Dress For Success Pittsburgh at "Women, Wine & Wellness" on March 26, 2008.
Palate Partners and Dreadnought Wines in the Strip District, well know for their wine tastings, wine expertise and unique shop full of wine accessories, formed a women-only wine tasting and networking group called Vin Fatales. In response to many years of requests for donations to limitless not-for-profit causes, Palate Partners created Vin Fatales to both give women a fun and focused opportunity to gather and network, as well as to focus their fundraising efforts into one main organization: Dress for Success Pittsburgh. They still provide goods to a handful of other not-for-profits, but Dress For Success is their main beneficiary.
The mission of Dress for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.
Founded in New York City in 1997, Dress for Success is an international not-for-profit organization offering services designed to help clients find a job and remain employed. Each Dress for Success client receives one suit when she has a job interview and can return for a second suit or separates when she finds work.
While they may be best known for providing suits to women, it is their employment retention programs that are the cornerstone of the organization. Soon after Dress for Success was founded, they came to recognize that finding a job is only one step in a woman's journey towards economic independence; remaining employed and building a rewarding career are equally important.
To meet the need for services that would help women both find and keep jobs, they established the Professional Women's Group (PWG) program, which provides ongoing support to enable women to successfully transition into the workforce, build thriving careers and prosper in the mainstream workplace. Once a woman joins PWG she is a member for life, able to attend meetings at any affiliate throughout the world and can benefit from additional employment retention and mentoring programs.
Vin Fatales is a membership group, with about 50 local businesswomen, ranging in position from President to file clerk, who gather at events created to enjoy tastes of special wines, to network and to partake in new experiences. Their upcoming event combines sipping boutique wines with an evening devoted to health and wellness.
Verve Wellness, the host of this evening's gathering, is downtown Pittsburgh's first health and wellness studio. A brand new idea in a classic Pittsburgh space, their 4000 square foot studio is located in the cultural district at 142 Sixth Street. The space is over 100 years old with original hardwood flooring, exposed brick and classic tin ceilings. Verve Wellness offers daily Pilates classes, personal training, massage therapy, skin care, waxing, facials, and acupuncture.
The Special Guest Speakers at this event will be Sandra A. Phoebe of Digene, who will discuss detection of and protection from Cervical cancer with a recently FDA approved test, and Carol Schubert of Combined Insurance who will discuss out of pocket and non-medical costs of cancer and the high rate of breast cancer in Western PA.
As a very special touch to the event, fresh from the recent City Theatre smash production of Eve Ensler's 'The Vagina Monologues', local actress Laurie Klatscher will reprise several of her monologues for attendees.
Laurie Klatscher, currently performing in "The Vagina Monologues" at City Theatre, also performed in Eve Ensler's "The Good Body". Along with many shows at City Theatre she has also performed with Quantum Theatre, Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre, The Pittsburgh Public Theatre, Unseam'd Shakespeare, JTOP, The Pittsburgh Opera and Playhouse REP. A graduate of CMU Drama, she has toured nationally with Jean Stapleton and played Alec Baldwin's girlfriend on "The Doctors"--a tough job, but someone had to do it.
An addition to the fundraising effort for this Vin Fatales event will be Susan Rosenblatt and her "Ambage" line of jewelry. Susan will be donating 15% of her sales this evening to the DFS cause. And in addition to the usual aspect of this fundraiser, there is another beneficiary for this evening.
Stacey is the Administrative Assistant in the DFS Offices. Stacey has been with DFS since the very beginning, back when it started as 'Corporate Collection' in 1999. When the DFS offices were closed for restructuring, Stacey did work with the Salvation Army and temp assignments with Mellon Bank, and was glad to return to DFS.
Now, most businesses know what headaches health insurance issues bring, but for a VERY small business, the costs are nearly prohibitive for providing employees with insurance. DFS is a very small office in Pittsburgh, and is not-for-profit on top of that. The local board feels, in light of the DFS mission, that health insurance SHOULD be provided for the employees.
However, the insurance rates have skyrocketed for Stacey and DFS this year. The proposed plan for Stacey's insurance used to require a deductible of $500. As a result of the rate hikes, Stacey's deductible will now be $1,000, and not within a not-for-profit's budget to cover. Nor is it within Stacey's budget to cover.
So, Palate Partners and Vin Fatales are making this evening a fundraiser to cover Stacey's $1,000 deductible. Ambage will earmark her 15% of sales to go toward Stacey's cause, and the Vin Fatales admission proceeds will also help toward the goal.
On March 26th, 2008, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM, Vin Fatales join Phoebe, Carol and Laurie at Verve Wellness, located 142 Sixth Street in downtown Pittsburgh, to discover world of wellness, savor a variety of Dreadnought Wines, and to raise funds for Dress For Success. All proceeds from the Vin Fatales events go directly to DFS. Vin Fatales get into the event for $10, and the general public for $15. Sorry fellas, these events are for women-only.
For more information on becoming a Vin Fatale, Dress For Success, Verve Wellness, to make reservations for 'Women, Wine & Wellness', or to learn about more wine tasting events, contact the Palate Partners by calling (412) 391-8502, or visit their website at
www.palatepartners.com.
