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This Sunday, March 2nd marks the 86th year of the Academy Awards – but, for the first time ever, shelter and rescue dogs will be the biggest winners of all!
This year, celebrities who don’t take home the Oscar Gold are still BIG winners in the pet community. Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres’ pet food company, Halo, Purely for Pets, in partnership with Freekibble.com, is giving 20 non-winning Oscar nominees 10,000 meals of natural pet food to donate to the animal shelter or rescue of the celebrity’s choice.
The gift is part of the coveted $55,000 nominee “Everyone Wins at the Oscars®” gift bags from Distinctive Assets, the LA-based marketing firm that launched the craze of celebrity swag 15 years ago, and will once again be consoling non-winning Oscar nominees in the Best Actor/Actress, Supporting Actor/Actress and Director categories with an array of special products and services.
The Halo and Freekibble.com gift makes a notable departure from the typical expensive gift bag products geared toward leisure time and pampering and taps into the penchant of many celebrities for giving.
With this in mind, the 10,000-meal donation to the animal rescue or shelter of the recipient’s choice is one of the most expensive items in the gift bag, a $6,100 retail value!
“We know many celebrities are extremely generous,” said David Yaskulka, Halo’s vice president of marketing communications. “So we decided to gift them with something different that we think will mean a lot to them. We’re looking forward to making those donations!”
Well known for its year-round philanthropic efforts, Halo, Purely for Pets partners with Freekibble.com to donate more than 1.5 million meals to shelter pets each year. The company also donated 1 million meals to shelter pets for the U.S. Postal Service Adopt a Shelter Pet Stamp Program, and sponsors the acclaimed PBS series “Shelter Me.”
Of course, celebrity recipients will also receive some Halo Spot’s Stew food and Liv-a-Littles treats for their own pets to enjoy.
In addition to Halo and Freekibble.com’s donation, lucky Oscars “losers” will receive luxury items like Chocolatines chocolate, Slow Watches, the PolarLoop activity tracker, luxury trips and more.
So, which celebs will win 10,000 healthy, nutritious meals for the shelter or rescue of their choice?
The nominees are…
Best director
Steve McQueen — “12 Years a Slave”
David O. Russell — “American Hustle”
Alfonso Cuaron — “Gravity”
Alexander Payne — “Nebraska”
Martin Scorsese — “The Wolf of Wall Street”
Best actor
Bruce Dern — “Nebraska”
Chiwetel Ejiofor — “12 Years a Slave”
Matthew McConaughey — “Dallas Buyers Club”
Leonardo DiCaprio — “The Wolf of Wall Street”
Christian Bale — “American Hustle”
Best actress
Amy Adams — “American Hustle”
Cate Blanchett — “Blue Jasmine”
Judi Dench — “Philomena”
Sandra Bullock — “Gravity”
Meryl Streep — “August: Osage County”
Best supporting actor
Barkhad Abdi — “Captain Phillips”
Bradley Cooper — “American Hustle”
Jonah Hill — “The Wolf of Wall Street”
Jared Leto — “Dallas Buyers Club”
Michael Fassbender — “12 Years a Slave”
Best supporting actress
Jennifer Lawrence — “American Hustle”
Lupita Nyong’o — “12 Years a Slave”
June Squibb — “Nebraska”
Julia Roberts — “August: Osage County”
Sally Hawkins — “Blue Jasmine”
ABOUT HALO, PURELY FOR PETS
For over 25 years, Halo, Purely for Pets® has created holistic pet products of uncompromising quality. Halo believes nutrition is the single most important factor in the quality of a pet’s life. Ellen DeGeneres – a long time Halo customer – became part-owner in 2008. In 2010, Halo donated 1 million meals to shelter pets for the U.S. Postal Service Adopt a Shelter Pet Stamp Program. Halo now donates over 1.5 million meals to shelter pets annually in partnership with Freekibble.com, and sponsors the acclaimed PBS series “Shelter Me.” Halo’s natural dog food, natural cat food, treats, supplements and grooming products are available at Petco, Whole Foods Market, and other fine pet specialty and natural food stores. Learn more www.halopets.com.
ABOUT FREEKIBBLE.COM
Seventeen-year-old Mimi Ausland created Freekibble.com when she was 11 years old, to help feed the homeless dogs and cats at her local animal shelter. Freekibble.com and Freekibblekat.com are two of the five most-visited animal rescue web sites in the world, with over 125,000 combined daily visitors. With the help of Freekibble’s 500,000 loyal monthly followers, they have donated 11.8 million nutritious meals to over 200 shelters, rescues and food-banks across the country. Freekibble.com works with Halo, Purely For Pets® to distribute the pet food to all the animal shelters they are assisting. Freekibble is played in 137 countries.
Mike
Mar 3, 2014 at 8:46 am
I’m glad to see someone did something sensible in the land of “look at me”.
Making the dog food PART of the $55,000 “Losers’ Swag Bag” was the only way to get many of them to donate TO a shelter.
Otherwise, how many people think the “losers” would sell off the gaudy, overpriced swag and donate the cash to an animal shelter? Hint….you’d be able to count them on one hand…….with missing fingers.
This way, they just tell Ellen’s people where to send it, then they get a $6,100 tax deduction and get called heroes for feeding shelter animals when they never spent a dime or lifted a finger.
Dorothy
Feb 26, 2014 at 10:00 am
I think that this is just fantastic. I wish more acts of kindness and generosity were done in such an upstanding fashion. God bless ya