Power of Love 2023

John Paul and Eloise attended the 2023 Power of Love Gala with friends in Las Vegas over the weekend. John Paul was presented with the Community Leadership Award! Here’s more from Cleveland Clinic:

Keep Memory Alive hosted a prestigious lineup of entertainers at the 26th annual Power of Love® gala on Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023, at MGM Grand Garden Arena, including Sammy Hagar, Paula Abdul, Alice Cooper, Kevin Cronin, Nikki Glaser, Chad Kroeger, John Mayer, Michael McDonald, Sam Moore and Rick Springfield.  

The evening raised crucial funds for Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health to provide quality care, resources and many no-cost support and education services to patients and their caregivers as they fight brain diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, multiple system atrophy and multiple sclerosis (MS)…

The Ruvos then presented the Community Leadership Award to entrepreneur and philanthropist John Paul DeJoria, who was at the original memorial dinner for Lou and wrote the first check that inspired Keep Memory Alive and the annual Power of Love gala.

DeJoria thanked the organization for the acknowledgement, saying, “Through all the decades I’ve been around, what I’ve found is when you do something for someone else and ask absolutely nothing in return, especially someone you know nothing about, you get the greatest high you will ever get in your life.”

Camille Ruvo then surprised the audience by presenting a second Community Leadership Award to Eloise DeJoria for the depth of her philanthropic endeavors as well.

Love this event and love all these folks that came together to raise support for patients and caregivers!

Eastside Kings Festival 2023

John Paul is a longtime supporter of music in Austin, particularly the blues. Eastside King Foundation’s mission is to preserve and promotes the cultural heritage of African American Blues, Jazz, and Gospel. Their initiative focuses on largely unknown African American musicians and aims to give them opportunities to showcase their music in live performances in Austin and around the world. Preserving the best parts of Austin, as important now as we are growing as ever, means preserving the culture and music of East Austin. We are thrilled to be returning as the presenting sponsor for 2023’s Eastside Kings Blues Fest later this year!

A Trip to Mali

For the first time in our nine years of partnership, we were able to visit some of the schools and water projects we built with Empower Mali. John Paul met founder Yeah Samake (below) almost a decade ago, and they have been investing in education and water systems in and around Bamako, Mali ever since.

We were there primarily for the grand opening of a kindergarten — “Les Petits Heros de JP DeJoria” — in Badalabougou. It was the first of its kind in the area; the government does not provide schools for every kid based on economic constraints. Public/private partnership is critical to ensuring kids have a place to go to school. The mayor was in attendance, there were speeches and the acrobat dance troop put on a SHOW, let me tell you. I held my breath for most of it. Seeing the community come together with such excitement for their kids (and moms and dads that will benefit) was so heartwarming. John Paul has built seven such schools and there are more projects in the works!

We were also able to visit water systems; John Paul has helped build 43 water systems. Due to the terrain, wells are drilled to almost 600 feet, then pumped by solar power and typically two taps are built. For communities, water committees are formed to manage the usage and upkeep and a small charge is rendered per household, which is the best way to ensure sustainability and care for the systems. Water changes lives. We heard from one chief that his village no longer needs to worry about waterborne diseases. Women showed us the bounty of their garden and offered vegetables, cotton and kola nuts as a thank you for the water.

We also visited a few other schools and water wells. We taught kids the name of the foundation - PEACE LOVE HAPPINESS with hand signs, which they loved. It was such a joy to get to meet so many kids and see them so excited about school. The headmaster of the Moromoro school (below) was a delight — so proud of his students and his school.

THANK YOU so much to Empower Mali and their communities for being so gracious

Neptune's Navy is BACK

We are so proud and excited to announce a new and renewed partnership with Captain Paul Watson’s Foundation with the launch of the JOHN PAUL DEJORIA II — a vessel unlike any other that will protect the oceans and the life within it. The purpose of this newly created Foundation is to carry on Captain Paul Watson’s effective agenda to defend life in the sea through a unique strategy of aggressive non-violence and intervention against illegal operations exploiting life in the sea.

 As the co-founder of Greenpeace and the founder of Sea Shepherd, Captain Watson has become the world’s most iconic anti-poaching and anti-whaling strategist. He and John Paul have been friends for 35 years, and they are excited to continue working together to protect marine life and the planet.

We Can Now

We recently met Antony Jackson, founder of We Can Now, a group of individuals who have been through the everyday struggle of being without the essentials in life such as homelessness, no food, single-parent homes, lack of resources and seek to meet those needs for others. Antony’s life story is so similar to John Paul’s, and so is his positivity and infectious optimism. These two leaders were destined to work together!

We joined Antony and his team to serve Thanksgiving meal, hot coffee and warm clothes to folks living under a bridge in Austin. One of the fun parts was getting to shop for some winter weather essentials beforehand! The We Can Now team was so supportive and thoughtful in terms of what they served - healthy food, food for pets and warm blankets and tents. The people we met who are unhoused were so kind and waited patiently on a cold day. It was so nice to come together as a community and serve joy. Thanks to Antony for his leadership and vision!

JUST Fest

We are so thrilled to be the presenting sponsor for JUST Fest this weekend in Austin. JUST, the local nonprofit organization helping to fund Latina and Black Texan Female entrepreneurs will be holding their annual market – JUST Fest “A New Day, A New Dream” on Saturday, November 12 from 1-5 p.m. in the Mueller Park Pavilion. The market will feature handmade jewelry, purses, and other goods from 35 vendors (all JUST clients) as well as homemade tacos, treats, and beverages. The fest is family-friendly and will include some kid’s activities as well.

Entry is free and open to the public, and funds donated to The New Day, New Dream Fund will go directly to supporting more female entrepreneurs in the local Austin area and Dallas, Houston, and El Paso.

JUST is trying to close the racial wealth gap by offering trust-based personal and business loans to Latina and Black Female entrepreneurs – they do not check clients’ credit or ask for collateral and have had a 99.3% repayment rate. JUST’s goal is to reach $50,000 to support 100 new women in 2023.

CHFF22

This past weekend was the 10th Anniversary of the ConnectHER Film Festival — a global film festival that focuses on the stories and lives of women and girls. Eloise has been the presenting sponsor for the last decade, and we love that this event was back in person this year after a couple of years online. Eloise announced four awards on social media to young filmmakers the day before the event — she loves supporting young storytellers. Meeting so many filmmakers from around the world at the event was such a treat as well. We highly encourage you to watch some of the finalist films that focus on issues like period poverty, women in the workplace and child marriage. These stories teach us so much, and we are so glad ConnectHER exists a platform to elevate the stories and voices of women and girls.

Finding Home ATX

John Paul was at the Finding Home ATX event today announcing and celebrating partnership across service providers, business leaders and philanthropy to commit to build permanent supportive housing in Austin. We are proud to be a part of a community working together to learn from those with lived expertise and build the kind of Austin we all want to live in. Thank you to everyone who committed money, did the hard work of building and providing services and for the City of Austin for announcing incentives to help get people housed.