In recent years, the Washington wine industry has become a platform for creating a profound community impact through its support of higher education. Next time you find yourself looking for something to sip on, set your sights to one of these Washington wineries that give back in a scholarly fashion.
CANCER FOR COLLEGE
For many who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, the dream of affording college tuition can dwindle with each treatment, test and trip to the doctor.
“The family’s resources that they have carefully saved for college are eaten up by the disease,” says Karen Wade, of Fielding Hills Winery in Chelan, Washington. Regular donors to local education-based charities like the Washington Apple Education Foundation, Wade and her husband, Mike, were moved to action when they heard the two-time cancer survivorship story of Craig Pollard. Shortly after launching the winery in 2000, Wades met Pollard’s sister, Julie Kelly, at a wine event where she shared his successes.
“He beat it, and went on to go to USC and play baseball for them,” Karen Wade says. “For his final (senior) project he came up with the idea of a foundation as a way to help kids that have been in his situation.”
The foundation was called Cancer for College, and Wade and her husband were hooked. To contribute to the cause, the majority of the money donated by Fielding Hills comes from the annual interest off of the winery’s wine club registration fees.
“This is a kind of grassroots organization started by a family that (has) grown to be a significant benefactor for these kids who have maybe been forgotten,” Wade says.
Fielding Hills also supports and provides donations Washington’s annual Apple Blossom Festival’s Royalty Scholarship Fund, awarding scholarships to women following the Apple Blossom Royalty pageant.
OPPORTUNITY IN WINE
Woodinville, Washington’s O Wines makes education the priority of its winery, emphasizing it as the key to success. “You take a young student and you give them the opportunity for education, you never know what they might do with that,” says Stacy Lill, co-founder and brand ambassador of O Wines.
With the “O” standing for opportunity, O Wines was set up in 2006 as an organization to provide academic scholarships for low-income women pursuing higher education.
At the time, it was just co-founders Lill and Kathy Johanson running the show and they felt the demand to expand from the 12,000 cases of Chardonnay they were making at the time. The duo sold to nearby Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, which took the wine and ran. The winery “bought it and immediately produced 100,000 cases of both a Chardonnay and a red blend, with the intent of not only growing the brand but growing the scholarship program,” Lill says.
Today, O Wines has raised more than $300,000 for 54 scholarship recipients, and has been under the ownership of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates since 2012.
RAISE A GLASS
On another branch of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates’ reach, December marked the end of Woodinville’s Chateau Ste. Michelle’s eighth annual “Raise a Glass, Fund a Scholarship” program. Running four months and benefiting the Viticulture and Enology programs at Washington State University, as well as other like-programs in the Northwest, Ste. Michelle Wine Estates opens its entire portfolio to participating restaurants that choose a donation plan where a portion of the proceeds from each glass of featured Chateau Ste. Michelle wine is donated to the program.
“We have raised $350,000 to date, we hope and should get to $400,000 this year,” says Joe Aschbacher, Ste. Michelle’s senior director of global accounts west. “We’ve had well over 300 restaurants participate in the program throughout the state of Washington.”
Aschbacher says that a big part of the drive behind the program comes from a desire to create a better awareness of the opportunities to pursue an education in viticulture and enology within the Pacific Northwest, particularly at Washington State University. The university also recently opened its state-of-the-art Wine Science Center at the Tri-Cities Campus in Richland, Washington.
Not only are these Washington wineries providing for future generations, but also the contributions are helping to ensure the preservation and perpetuation of the state’s rich wine culture.
This story originally ran in the winter print issue of Sip Northwest, click here for more stories like this.
