Kathy Felch | Jan 17, 2017 on: Napa Vision 2050

Sometimes things just take your breath away. This time it was the long powerful arm of the wine industry reaching out to snatch pizza funds from our nonprofit, Napa Vision 2050, a two-year-old organization devoted to protecting the health and environment of Napa County. This is the wine industry that won the nation’s top place in direct-to-consumer sales in 2016. Napa county’s wine industry sales are expected to surpass $1 billion dollars for the second year in a row, according to the Napa Valley Register.

Saturday evening I got a call from an administrator for a new local restaurant trying to build their business here by connecting with our community. On behalf of Napa Vision 2050, I had arranged a Dine and Donate event at this restaurant for January 22 – supporters come in, show the restaurant’s flyer about the event and a percentage of their bill comes to our organization as a fundraiser. We had worked out a monthly Dine and Donate schedule through November of this year.

The announcement for our first event on January 22 went out to the Napa Vision 2050 mailing list, which includes many representatives of wine industry trade organizations and wineries. Evidently we tipped them off to something they did not like. Within twenty-four hours, the restaurant had received so many calls from wineries and the industry objecting to its partnering with us that the restaurant cancelled the events.

I think your readers ought to know what this industry is capable of doing. Our Napa County belongs to us all… not to any one industry. Do they think they own the county? Our events would have helped this restaurant reach into our community and it would have helped us raise money to make Napa a better place for all of us. Jeepers, a pizza fundraiser?

Kathy Felch
Vice-President, Napa Vision 2050