Clockwise: Dick Rivera (joined by Mary Darden, wife of the late Bill Darden) and Brad Blum – former presidents of Red Lobster and Olive Garden respectively, and current vice chairmen of Darden – visit restaurants during Dine Out for America to help raise funds for 9/11 disaster relief. Latino students received college scholarships thanks in part to a $25,000 grant from the Darden Restaurants Foundation. Boys and Girls Clubs are safe, positive and fun places where kids build life-long relationships.   Darden passionately believes in the mission of Boys & Girls Clubs, and that’s why we are major supporters. This year Darden supported the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida’s Capital/Endowment Campaign with a $400,000 grant, the first installment of a three-year, $1,000,000 commitment. The grant will help the Central Florida clubs serve 5,200 new children projected to need services in the next five years, in addition to the 8,500 current members. Darden also helped the Boys & Girls Clubs conduct their capital campaign, through volunteer support and helping develop media materials. In addition, everywhere Bahama Breeze opens a new restaurant, it hosts $5-a-person “practice runs” for the community and donates the proceeds to local Boys & Girls Clubs. Cops & Lobsters Each year Red Lobster restaurants and law enforcement agencies around the United States and Canada participate in Cops & Lobsters. Uniformed officers serve as celebrity servers who talk to guests about International Special Olympics and ask for donations. It’s a fun event for guests, servers and the officers, and is highly successful, raising millions of dollars for Special Olympics. Pasta for Pennies School children throughout the country collect pennies to donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America during Olive Garden’s annual Pasta for Pennies program. Classes compete against each other to raise the most pennies, and the top class wins a catered lunch from a local Olive Garden. This year more than 900,000 students in 1,295 schools raised $1.7 million to help find a cure for leukemia and lymphoma. Share Our Strength More than 33 million Americans – one in 10 households – cannot afford enough food to meet their basic needs. Share Our Strength is dedicated to finding immediate and long-term solutions for ending hunger and poverty in the U.S., a mission that is close to Darden’s heart as well. In partnership with the food industry, SOS teaches low-income families food budgeting and healthy cooking skills and supports organizations that provide emergency food, build community gardens and operate inner-city farmer’s markets. The annual Taste of the Nation fundraiser held in 70 cities across the United States and Canada is SOS’s premier benefit. One hundred percent of the funds raised go to fight hunger. Again this year, Darden is a proud corporate sponsor of the Central Florida Taste of the Nation. The Orlando event raises funds for the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida and the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida. CELEBRATING DIVERSITY Recruiting, hiring and nurturing the careers of women and minorities and increasing the diversity of our suppliers is a top priority at Darden. Our efforts have earned national recognition, including from Fortune magazine, which has ranked Darden as one of the top 50 companies for minorities three years in a row. We put our commitment to diversity in action through partnerships with a variety of local and national organizations, including the Urban League, NAACP, the National Minority Supplier Development Council, the Hispanic-American, African-American and Asian-American Chambers of Commerce, The East Los Angeles Community Union (TELACU), the National Council of LaRaza, the National Council for Community and Justice, and the United Negro College fund, to name a few. TELACU The East Los Angeles Community Union is one of the foremost community and economic development organizations in Los Angeles. This year, Darden contributed $25,000 to the TELACU Education Foundation’s scholarship program, which works to increase the college graduation rates of Latino students from the greater Los Angeles area. Encompassing more than just scholarship money, the program offers a range of services, including a retention and leadership program, internships, mentorships and an educational resource center. continued>