Posts made in March 2020

JENNA MORELLO

Jenna Morello is a multi-disciplinary artist from Brooklyn. At home, she creates large-scale bold, expressive walls as well as meticulously crafted sculptures. She mixes and matches multiple mediums to create nature-based, sometimes anatomical art which speaks for itself. Her work is internationally sold; and her murals can be seen around the world. She has completed projects for The Ritz-Carlton, the World Trade Center, Universal Music Group, Macy’s and the Super Bowl. As of late, she’s been featured in both The New York Times and Forbes.

http://www.jennamorello.com/

Playboy X MISSGUIDED Latest Launch

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‘PLAYBOY X MISSGUIDED’ FASHION COLLABORATION CONTINUES TO DOMINATE WITH LATEST LAUNCH

The successful collaboration celebrates MISSGUIDED’s most successful capsule collection to date

Today, MISSGUIDED announced the latest installment in their ongoing collaboration with the iconic Playboy brand. This announcement comes on the heels of consecutive year-over-year sell-out success. MISSGUIDED, a forward-thinking international brand, proudly introduces a 76-piece collection entitled Playboy Reloaded. This will be the largest fashion collection the pair have put out to date.

PLAYBOY X MISSGUIDED’s Playboy Reloaded is inspired by the brands’ united mission to empower its wearers globally. Playboy Reloaded encourages fans of the collection to express themselves fearlessly and feel confident being their most unapologetic selves. Since the pairing’s initial launch in 2018, over half a million items have been sold. Three-quarters of these items were bought in the first seven days following each launch, totaling nearly 150,000 customers in 112 countries. With the consumer demand’s increase season after season, the range has expanded to include ready-to-wear, swimwear and accessories. Its overwhelming popularity has resulted in repeated restocks and surging sales.

“Our Missguided babe knows what she wants and our collaboration with Playboy delivers it,” said MISSGUIDED Founder and CEO Nitin Passi. “It’s a collaboration that has consistently resonated with our customers and gets stronger with every collection.”

The new Playboy Reloaded collection features best-sellers alongside brand new streetwear-inspired silhouettes created for the open-minded, authentic and rebellious individual. The campaign was shot in Los Angeles and lensed by Adam Rindy (photography) and Gary Long (video). Playboy Reloaded is modeled by sisters Loz and Gigi AKA Blessed. The duo was picked for the campaign for the undeniable confidence they exude wearing the latest drop.

PLAYBOY X MISSGUIDED’s latest, most substantial launch will feature the unmistakable Rabbit Head and Playboy insignia, playfully updated as neon spray paint prints featured on oversized hooded sweaters, corset tops, jogger sets, and t-shirt dresses. The range is easily styled and effortlessly wearable. Tie-dye, hi-vis details and graffiti-style motifs showcase an exciting new approach, which elevates the unique and aspirational collection designed for the next generation of fearless individuals. Own PLAYBOY X MISSGUIDED’S Playboy Reloaded collection now at www.missguided.com. Available in sizes 0-18 and retailing from $20.00 – $68.00.

About MISSGUIDED:
Missguided is one of the fastest-growing women’s online retailers in the world. Founded in 2009 in the UK by Nitin Passi, it has become a leading rapid fashion retailer, taking an agile approach that sees it deliver commercial and affordable products to its customers before trends hit. It’s signature confident style and broad product range has driven global development in recent years, now selling to over 160 countries and locally active in the US, Australia, France, Spain, Ireland, and Germany, with future plans for further international expansion and a loyal following of over 6 million social media fans worldwide across multiple platforms. Missguided have further developed their global profile and growth through numerous wholesale opportunities with established brands such as F21, ASOS, Zalando, The Iconic, Nelly, and Namshi and flagship stores at Bluewater, Kent and at Dubai Mall, Dubai.

ABOUT PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES INC
Playboy, originally founded in 1953 as a smart, sophisticated and playful men’s magazine, today reaches a wide global audience through a diverse portfolio of consumer products, content, gaming, and hospitality offerings. With 97% unaided global brand recognition and nearly 50 million social media fans worldwide, Playboy remains one of the most iconic brands in history. Under its mission of Pleasure for All, the 66-year-old Playboy brand drives more than $3 billion in annual sales at retail across 180 countries.

Follow along on social:
@missguided @playboy

Loosid’s Guide to a Sober St. Patty’s Day

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With St. Patrick’s Day just around the corner, people all over America are gearing up to celebrate the famous St. Patrick. While this might be a cause for celebration, holidays such as St. Patty’s day turn into large binge drinking fests, focusing more on downing beer and less on the significance of the day.

If you’re looking to avoid the craziness, and want to celebrate booze-free as the growing sober curious trend continues to sweep the U.S., then download Loosid: a sober app that created the world’s first Boozeless Guides™, giving the growing sober community alcohol-free options across the country!

About Loosid:

Loosid was born out of the need to unite the sober community and bring together those people in recovery and battling addiction, as well as those who choose to live a sober lifestyle for other reasons (a combined total of over 100 million people from all walks of life). Loosid’s vision is to create a comprehensive digital platform for the sober community that celebrates the sober lifestyle while at the same time providing support for those members of the community in recovery or struggling with addiction. Through Loosid, it’s easy to find other people who share your perspective, who know all too well that being sober doesn’t mean life has to be boring. Loosid makes it easy to find new friends and even new love, to find fun sober events and destinations, and to find groups in your community and beyond that promote sober living. All at the touch of a button.

About MJ Gottlieb:

MJ Gottlieb is the Co-Founder & CEO of Loosid, a groundbreaking new app that makes it easy to find new friends, dating, fun sober events and destinations, and groups in your community that promote sober living. MJ has been sober since March 2012, but began his first attempt at sobriety in the late 1990’s. He invariably found his way back into addiction for one main reason…to him, sobriety simply wasn’t fun.

In 2017, MJ began developing the Loosid app to offer millions of people in the sober community access to fun experiences and a place to connect and find support. He also wanted to create a full suite of recovery tools for people to connect and get help at a moment’s notice. He knew the stigma so many have reaching out to people and knew that the best way to provide that connection was through the one thing that people are never without –their phones!

Rice University x SLIDE

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Deep learning rethink overcomes major obstacle in AI industry SLIDE is first algorithm for training deep neural nets faster on CPUs than GPUs

Rice University computer scientists have overcome a major obstacle in the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry by showing it is possible to speed up deep learning technology without specialized acceleration hardware like graphics processing units (GPUs). Scientists from Rice, supported by collaborators from Intel, will present their results today at the Austin Convention Center as a part of the machine learning systems conference MLSys.

Many companies are investing heavily in GPUs and other specialized hardware to implement deep learning, a powerful form of artificial intelligence that’s behind digital assistants like Alexa and Siri, facial recognition, product recommendation systems and other technologies. For example, Nvidia, the maker of the industry’s gold-standard Tesla V100 Tensor Core GPUs, recently reported a 41% increase in its fourth quarter revenues compared with the previous year.

Rice researchers created a cost-saving alternative to GPU, an algorithm called “sub-linear deep learning engine” (SLIDE) that uses general-purpose central processing units (CPUs) without specialized acceleration hardware.

“Our tests show that SLIDE is the first smart algorithmic implementation of deep learning on CPU that can outperform GPU hardware acceleration on industry-scale recommendation datasets with large fully connected architectures,” said Anshumali Shrivastava, an assistant professor in Rice’s Brown School of Engineering who invented SLIDE with graduate students Beidi Chen and Tharun Medini SLIDE doesn’t need GPUs because it takes a fundamentally different approach to deep learning. The standard “back-propagation ” training technique for deep neural networks requires matrix multiplication, an ideal workload for GPUs. With SLIDE, Shrivastava, Chen and Medini turned neural network training into a search problem that could instead be solved with hash tables, his radically reduces the computational overhead for SLIDE compared to back-propagation training. For example, a top-of-the-line GPU platform like the ones Amazon, Google and others offer for cloud-based deep learning services has eight Tesla V100s and costs about $100,000, Shrivastava said.

“We have one in the lab, and in our test case we took a workload that’s perfect for V100, one with more than 100 million parameters in large, fully connected networks that fit in GPU memory,” he said. “We trained it with the best (software) package out there, Google’s TensorFlow, and it took 3 1/2 hours to train.

“We then showed that our new algorithm can do the training in one hour, not on GPUs but on a 44-core Xeon-class CPU,” Shrivastava said.

Deep learning networks were inspired by biology, and their central feature, artificial neurons, are small pieces of computer code that can learn to perform a specific task. A deep learning network can contain millions or even billions of artificial neurons, and working together they can learn to make human-level, expert decisions simply by studying large amounts of data. For example, if a deep neural network is trained to identify objects in photos, it will employ different neurons to recognize a photo of a cat than it will to recognize a school bus. “You don’t need to train all the neurons on every case,” Medini said. “We thought, ‘If we only want to pick the neurons that are relevant, then it’s a search problem.’ So, algorithmically, the idea was to use locality-sensitive hashing to get away from matrix multiplication.”

Hashing is a data-indexing method invented for internet search in the 1990s. It uses numerical methods to encode large amounts of information, like entire webpages or chapters of a book, as a string of digits called a hash. Hash tables are lists of hashes that can be searched very quickly.

“It would have made no sense to implement our algorithm on TensorFlow or PyTorch because the first thing they want to do is convert whatever you’re doing into a matrix multiplication problem,” Chen said. “That is precisely what we wanted to get away from. So we wrote our own C++ code from scratch.”

Shrivastava said SLIDE’s biggest advantage over back-propagation is that it is data parallel.

“By data parallel I mean that if I have two data instances that I want to train on, let’s say one is an image of a cat and the other of a bus, they will likely activate different neurons, and SLIDE can update, or train on these two independently,” he said. “This is much a better utilization of parallelism for CPUs.

“The flipside, compared to GPU, is that we require a big memory,” he said. “There is a cache hierarchy in main memory, and if you’re not careful with it you can run into a problem called cache thrashing, where you get a lot of cache misses.” Shrivastava said his group’s first experiments with SLIDE produced significant cache thrashing, but their training times were still comparable to or faster than GPU training times. So he, Chen and Medini published the initial results on arXiv in March 2019 and uploaded their code to GitHub. A few weeks later, they were contacted by Intel.

“Our collaborators from Intel recognized the caching problem,” he said. “They told us they could work with us to make it train even faster, and they were right. Our results improved by about 50% with their help.” Shrivastava said SLIDE hasn’t yet come close to reaching its potential.

“We’ve just scratched the surface,” he said. “There’s a lot we can still do to optimize. We have not used vectorization, for example, or built-in accelerators in the CPU, like Intel Deep Learning Boost. There are a lot of other tricks we could still use to make this even faster.”

He said SLIDE is important because it shows there are other ways to implement deep learning.

“The whole message is, ‘Let’s not be bottlenecked by multiplication matrix and GPU memory,'” Shrivastava said. “Ours may be the first algorithmic approach to beat GPU, but I hope it’s not the last. The field needs new ideas, and that is a big part of what MLSys is about.”

Additional co-authors include James Farwell, Sameh Gobriel and Charlie Tai, all of Intel Labs.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF-1652131, NSF-BIGDATA 1838177), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-18-1-0152), Amazon and the Office of Naval Research.

MLSys paper
Rice University News on Twitter

About Rice Univerisity

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,962 undergraduates and 3,027 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 4 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as the best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.

Festival Napa Valley

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Festival Napa Valley Announces Its 15th Anniversary Season

Featuring Jennifer Hudson, Joshua Bell and Larisa Martínez, Roberto Bolle, the Young People’s Chorus of NYC with Thomas Hampson, and the World Premiere of Gordon Getty’s Opera Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Festival Napa Valley, recognized for transforming California Wine Country into a cultural destination, announces its 2020 summer season, July 17– 26. The Festival’s 15th anniversary will be commemorated with more than 40 concerts and events in an inspiring season of reflection, celebration and enthusiasm for the years to come.

Now in its 15th year, Festival Napa Valley offers a rich range of programs—from symphonic concerts, opera, film, and dance, to chamber music and jazz.

In addition to presenting the finest performing arts, Festival Napa Valley is committed to supporting underserved members of the community by providing free tickets to students, veterans and seniors. The Festival’s extensive educational program includes master classes for local college students; Arts for All camps, which serve more than 1600 Boys & Girls Club youth ages 6-18; and a tuition-free music academy for 60 pre-professional musicians from around the world.

“This anniversary season is dedicated to recognizing and honoring all of the outstanding artists, chefs, vintners and partners that make this Festival so special,” says Richard Walker, President & CEO of Festival Napa Valley. “We are equal parts inspired and reflective, and both of these feelings have found expression in the programming for our 15th Anniversary Season. We are excited to create a little magic for our audience and supporters this summer.”

Festival Napa Valley 2020 Highlights:

International opera star Thomas Hampson kicks off the 15th season at Castello di Amorosa with his bountiful Song of America: Beyond Liberty. Hampson will be joined by acclaimed pianist Lara Downes, the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, and a chamber ensemble in this concert pairing music, poetry, rhetoric, and history.

Grammy and Academy-award winning singer and actress Jennifer Hudson headlines Wine Country’s biggest arts charity event, the Arts for All Gala at HALL Napa Valley.

The Festival presents the world premiere of Goodbye, Mr. Chips, the highly anticipated opera by acclaimed composer Gordon Getty.

High-energy cover band Brickhouse headlines Taste of Napa, Festival Napa Valley’s signature celebration of food, wine, and music, at Vista Collina.

Violin virtuoso Joshua Bell and radiant soprano Larisa Martínez perform music inspired by Bell’s chart-topping CD, Voice of the Violin at Charles Krug Winery. To commemorate Beethoven’s 250th birthday, Bell and his two distinguished colleagues, pianist Jeremy Denk and cellist Steven Isserlis, perform Beethoven’s masterpiece “Triple Concerto” with Festival Orchestra Napa, under the baton of Joel Revzen.

Brilliant American violinist Chad Hoopes performs Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with the Blackburn Academy Orchestra under the baton of acclaimed conductor Carlo Ponti at Far Niente, accompanied by poetry written by Napa County high school students on the theme The Four Seasons of Napa Valley.

Renowned pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet performs a private recital at Darioush.

Maestro Joel Revzen and Festival Orchestra Napa bring Disney’s seminal film, Fantasia, to life while the film plays on the big screen.

Opera Under the Stars at Meadowood Napa Valley features Festival favorites soprano Nadine Sierra and tenor Michael Fabiano performing arias and duets with Festival Orchestra Napa, led by the eminent conductor James Conlon.

Ballet superstar Roberto Bolle brings his celebrated show, Roberto Bolle and Friends, to Napa for the annual Dance Gala.

Festival Live! Chamber Series returns with 12 free concerts at locations throughout Napa Valley.

The popular Bouchaine Young Artist Series showcases the next generation of classical music artists.

The Festival’s Blackburn Music Academy Orchestra shines in an admission-free Monday at the Symphony concert featuring works by Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Karen LeFrak at Lincoln Theater.

Single concert tickets starting at $39 are now on sale. For an elevated Festival Napa Valley experience, Patron Passes including access to exclusive lunches, dinners and lounges are also available. To view the full schedule and to purchase passes, visit http://www.FestivalNapaValley.org.

About Festival Napa Valley:

Blending the beauty and bounty of Napa Valley with the very finest performing arts, Festival Napa Valley offers programs that enrich the economic and cultural vitality of the region. The Festival’s central mission is to make the arts accessible to all. The Festival presents world-class performances staged in iconic Napa Valley venues and inspiring educational programs offered at Napa County public schools year-round. It is presented by Napa Valley Festival Association, a nonprofit organization governed by a board of prominent vintners and local leaders. More than 200 artists, wineries, resorts, theaters, restaurants, chefs and vintners participate each year. Festival Napa Valley 2020 takes place July 17 – 26. To learn more, visit http://www.festivalnapavalley.org.

Hall and Oates x Summer Tour

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You don’t want to miss this!

6 Reasons Why Daryl Hall & John Oates Summer Tour is a Must-See

Click Here for Article

2020 Tour Dates * w/ Squeeze ^ w/ KT Tunstall
March 21 – Fantasy Springs Resort – Indio, CA
March 27 – Neal S. Blaisdell Center – Honolulu, HI
March 29 – Maui Arts & Cultural Center– Kahului, HI
May 15 – Foxwoods – Mashantucket, CT
May 16 – Foxwoods – Mashantucket, CT
May 23 – HoagieNation – Philadelphia, PA *^
May 29 – Hollywood Bowl – Los Angeles, CA *^
May 31 – North Island Credit Union Amphitheater – Chula Vista, CA *^
June 3 – Moda Centre – Portland, OR *^
June 5 – White River Amphitheater – Auburn, WA *^
June 7 – Toyota Amphitheater – Wheatland, CA *^
June 10 – Shoreline Amphitheater – Mountain View, CA *^
June 12 – Ak-Chin Pavilion – Phoenix, AZ *^
June 14 – Pepsi Center – Denver, CO *^
June 17 – Dos Equis Pavilion – Dallas, TX *^
June 19 – Austin 360 Amphitheater – Austin, TX *^
June 21 – Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion – Houston, TX *^
July 10 – Budweiser Stage – Toronto, ON *^
July 12 – Riverbend Music Theatre – Cincinnati, OH *^
July 14 – Blossom Music Center – Cleveland, OH *^
July 16 – Xcel Energy – St. Paul, MN *^
July 18 – Hollywood Casino Amphitheater – Chicago, IL *^
July 20 – DTE Energy Music Theatre – Detroit, MI *^
July 22 – Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center – Noblesville, IN *^
July 24 – Hollywood Casino Amphitheater – St. Louis, MO *^
July 26 – AmFAM Amphitheater – Milwaukee, WI *^
July 28 – T Bank Pavilion – Pittsburgh, PA *^
July 30 – Lakeview Amphitheater – Syracuse, NY *^
August 13 – Ameris Bank Amphitheater – Atlanta, GA *^
August 15 – MidFlorida CreditUnion Amphitheater – Tampa, FL *^
August 18 – PNC Music Pavilion – Charlotte, NC *^
August 20 – Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater – Virginia Beach, VA *^
August 22 – Merriweather Post Pavilion – Columbia, MD *^
August 25 – PNC Bank Arts Arena – Holmdel, NJ *^
August 27 – Nassau Veterans Memorial Colosseum – Uniondale, NY *^
August 29 – Xfinity Center – Mansfield, MA *^
August 31 – Saratoga PAC – Saratoga Springs, NY *^
September 2 – Bank of NH Pavilion – Gilford, NH *^

Click HERE for Full Tour Details
Wolfson Entertainment | Wolfson Entertainment Inc.

Hall & Oates, Summer Tour, Wolfson Entertainment, Vaughn Lowery, 360 Magazine,

CORVETTE STINGRAY: THE MID-ENGINE REVOLUTION

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Available May 19, 2020

The officially licensed Corvette Stingray: The Mid-Engine Revolution (Motorbooks, May 19, 2020) chronicles the full development story behind Chevrolet’s re-imagined sports car with an engaging, detailed text and photography from GM’s archives and Corvette team members. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at the history, detailed, development, and technology of a modern-day supercar masterpiece.

Corvette is Chevrolet’s iconic performance car. Its importance to the brand cannot be overstated. Thus, each new generation is sweated by Chevy’s designers, engineers, marketing staff, and executives to ensure that it sets the bar higher than the preceding version.

With the eighth generation, Chevrolet has done more than raise the bar or move the goalpost—they’ve torn down the stadium and started from scratch. For the first time ever in a production version, the new Corvette features a mid-engine configuration. Though Corvette engineers have experimented with this engine placement over the past several decades, 2020 marks the first time GM has committed it to production cars.

Corvette already had prodigious power on tap, but its front-engine configuration put some limitations on its handling and traction. The new mid-engine Corvette eliminates any final performance barriers and takes the battle to supercar rivals like Ferrari, Lamborghini, and McLaren. Chevrolet has experimented with mid-engine platforms for its legendary sports car since the late 1950s—now it’s reality! Corvette Stingray: The Mid-Engine Revolution takes the reader from those early prototypes through the design and engineering process used to create today’s Corvette Stingray supercar. It’s the Corvette story all enthusiasts will want in their automotive library.

Book Specs
CORVETTE STINGRAY: THE MID-ENGINE REVOLUTION
Available May 19, 2020
Hardcover, 192 pages
ISBN: 9780760367438
Published by Motorbooks

Fundación Palace x Refettorio Mérida

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FOOD FOR SOUL FOUNDED BY CHEF MASSIMO BOTTURA AND LARA GILMORE, AND PALACE RESORT’S FUNDACIÓN PALACE ANNOUNCE THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF REFETTORIO MÉRIDA

An inclusive place of beauty dedicated to the most vulnerable, to celebrate Mexican culture and community spirit

Food for Soul, the nonprofit organization founded by Chef Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore to fight food waste while strengthening social inclusion and community resilience has partnered with Fundación Palace, Palace Resorts’ philanthropic institution, whose main objective is to help contribute and give back to the communities in which it operates. The two organizations will open the first North American Refettorio on March 25, 2020, in the city center of Mérida, Mexico.

Being Food for Soul’s ideal partner for the first Refettorio in North America, Fundación Palace is committed to changing the narrative for local communities to promote social progress and equitable food distribution. Refettorio Mérida offers a daily lunchtime food service to vulnerable members of the local community by transforming surplus ingredients into delicious meals. Designed to be much more than a community kitchen, Refettorio Mérida will be a beautiful, colorful gathering space for the whole community. Located inside “Casa Santa Luisa,” this is a historic, colonial house that belonged to the Yucatecan philanthropist Pedro Canales, who was an advocate for social conscience and who decided to gift it to the Voluntarias Vicentinas de Yucatán AC.

The aim of Refettorio Mérida is to be a gift to the city, providing a unique sense of community that respects the many social layers of Mérida. The city has always been a melting pot of cultures and nationalities and even today has a very strong, well-established cultural identity with influences from all over the world. This diversity will be reflected and celebrated within the walls of the Refettorio, which will become a place for people to express their culture and identity. To celebrate Mexican culture and the equal right of all to beauty, Refettorio Mérida will display artworks by artist Bosco Sodi and others selected by gallerist Jose Garcia Torres. Sodi is a Mexican contemporary artist known for his richly textured, vividly colored large-scale paintings, and his recognition has expanded throughout the international market for his philanthropic efforts. Additionally, Torres is the director of a contemporary art gallery, Merida-based Jose Garcia Gallery, which promotes leading Mexican and international artists.

Conceived by Chef Massimo Bottura in 2015, Food for Soul’s Refettorios are places where gestures of hospitality and dignity are offered to all through nutritious and beautiful meals made with surplus food. Beginning in late March, recognized Mexican and international chefs will be invited to join the movement. From Monday to Friday, a team of local volunteers will serve a delectable three-course lunch to guests in different situations of social vulnerability, including the homeless and isolated members of the community.

The Refettorio model is the expression of Food for Soul’s Guiding Principles: the quality of ideas, the power of beauty, and the value of hospitality. With projects already opened in Milan, Rio de Janeiro, Modena, Bologna, London, Paris, Naples and soon Mérida, Food for Soul continues to work toward its mission in partnership with organizations all over the world.

“Our dream to open a Refettorio in Mérida is about to become real, and we can’t wait to start this new adventure with an excellent partner as Fundación Palace, paying homage to Yucatecan culture and flavors. This is an opportunity to build a world where food is not wasted and people are treated with dignity”, said Massimo Bottura, internationally renowned chef and founder of Food for Soul.

“Palace Resorts is an organization that has placed philanthropy and giving back to our communities at the helm of our business. Fundacion Palace is proud to partner with Food For Soul on a project that is near to both of our hearts. Being able to open up Refettorio Merida is a testament to our company’s commitment to positively impact those that need it the most. Merida is special to us because it is the city in which we planted our roots. It is overwhelmingly gratifying to us, and it is our hope to provide nourishing and beautiful meals created with love using excess food, along with the opportunity for a better tomorrow,” said Jabib Chapur, Vice President of Operations, Palace Resorts.

Following the opening, Refettorio Mérida will continue to operate with the support of Food for Soul and Fundación Palace, offering a space where meals are shared and also providing workshops and events throughout the year to inspire and engage the whole community.

FUNDACION PALACE:
Fundación Palace Resorts IAP, is a nonprofit institution created in 2004 by Palace Resorts. The philanthropic institution was created with the primary objective to help contribute and give back to the communities in which it operates with one goal in mind: the pleasure of helping others. Since its establishment in 2004, the Palace Foundation has been fully committed to its mission of promoting the actions of its five committees. So far in 2020, the organization has awarded 120 scholarships to seven generations of university alumni through the Education Committee, fulfilled more than 2,000 dreams for terminally ill children through the Dreams Committee, and has provided healthcare to 1,100 people through different types of therapies for the Socialm Wellness Committee. Thanks to their partnerships with multiple health organizations, both public and private, the Health Committee has been able to provide more than 700 locals with medical care. The Environmental Committee has assisted with the protection of 3,120 turtle nests, 356,361 turtle eggs, and 308,336 sea turtle hatchling releases.

Additionally, in 2016, the foundation launched the “Casa Hogar,” an orphanage for local Mexican children, which provides housing and care for nearly 43 local children. Casa Hogar also features classrooms, a counseling center, a medical office, and a special needs area. The facility also features a chapel, playroom and computer center, swimming pool, multiple green areas, and a covered basketball court. Casa Hogar’s primary objective is to provide at-risk children in need the opportunity to have shelter, formal education, and healthcare.

FOOD FOR SOUL:
Food for Soul is a non-profit organization founded by chef Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore to empower local communities to fight against food waste through social inclusion. Food for Soul builds culture as a way of strengthening community resilience, opening opportunities for social mobility and advocating for healthy and equitable food ecosystems. The organization began with the Refettorio Ambrosiano in Milan during Expo2015 with subsequent projects launched in Rio de Janeiro (Refettorio Gastromotiva), London (Refettorio Felix at St Cuthbert’s), Paris (Refettorio Paris Au Foyer de la Madeleine), Mérida (Refettorio Mérida) as well as Social Tables in Modena (Social Tables Ghirlandina) Bologna (Social Tables Antoniano) and Napoli (Social Tables Made in Cloister).

More information: www.foodforsoul.it

Instagram: @Foodforsoul_it |
Facebook: Foodforsoul.it
Hashtags: #Foodforsoul #Refettoriomerida
More On: Fundacionpalace.org

Fundación Palace, Refettorio Mérida, Massimo Bottura, Lara Gilmore, Vaughn Lowery, 360 Magazine,

Nike x Cross-Country Camp

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Nike Running Camps Announces Dates For The Nike Cross Country Camp At The University of San Diego

Located in the beautiful city of San Diego, California, the Nike Cross Country Camp at the University of San Diego announces June 14-17 and July 5-8 as its camp dates for 2020.

Last summer, runners at the Nike Cross Country Camp at the University of San Diego experienced informative, challenging, and fun weeks of training.

In addition to cross country training, the camp instructs runners on the principles team building and team management, learning how to inspire others, conflict resolution, communication skills, and identifying ways to contribute to furthering a positive team culture. All of this leads to campers reaching their own and team’s full potential.

The University of San Diego Head Coach and Camp Director Will Guarino leads break-out sessions and interactive discussions which take place on campus. Runners travel to nearby beaches, the San Diego Bay, San Diego’s historical sites, and San Diego’s own Balboa Park. Guarino says, “Training sessions are for the driven leader, lover of the outdoors, and those interested in making a significant contribution to their team. This running camp is for the active athlete interested in building their leadership skills. My campers leave USD energized and ready for their upcoming XC season.”

Campers stay in the USD dorms, eat in the dining hall and run on local San Diego beaches and trails. The camp is coed, overnight and day campers, ages 11-18. All ability levels are welcome, those with the desire to train smarter, work hard and to have fun.

Players, coaches, and parents interested in learning more can visit Nike Running Camps.

About US Sports Camps:
US Sports Camps (USSC), headquartered in San Rafael, California, is America’s largest sports camp network and the licensed operator of Nike Sports Camps. The company has offered summer camps since 1975 with the same mission that defines it today: to shape a lifelong enjoyment of athletics through high-quality sports education and skill enhancement.

Shango x Moreno Valley

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Shango Is the City’s First Licensed Retail Cannabis Facility

The dreams of two Southern Californians will come true when the new Shango Moreno Valley recreational cannabis dispensary opens on March 5, 2020.

Shango founder and CEO Brandon Rexroad, and former NFL All-Pro offensive lineman Kyle Turley are the ownership group that is bringing the Shango brand to California.

Rexroad, a longtime resident of Orange County, is a close friend of Turley who grew up in Moreno Valley.

“Opening a dispensary in Southern California has been a personal goal of mine since I started in the cannabis industry nearly 24 years ago,” Rexroad said. “We’re excited to be the first licensed dispensary in Moreno Valley and we’re planning on making a positive impact on this community.

“Shango Moreno Valley has an exceptional location,” Rexroad said. “Shango will offer the best cannabis shopping experience in the Inland Empire. Our customers are going to be amazed.”

The official Grand Opening celebration for the public will take place on March 13, 2020 at 10 a.m. with a Moreno Valley Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting ceremony, featuring local government and business leaders and media. Representatives of Shango’s ownership group and management will be available for Interviews before and during the event.

The first 50 people in line for the Grand Opening will receive complimentary Shango merchandise and deep discounts on cannabis products and accessories. Other special offers and raffles will be available to all customers throughout the Grand Opening weekend.

The dispensary is located at 11875 Pigeon Pass, Unit C1 in Moreno Valley, in the Stater Bros shopping center at the corner of Pigeon Pass and Ironwood, near California Highway 60. Hours of operation are from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week.

Shango holds a total of 29 cannabis licenses in state markets across the country, including 10 for dispensaries in Oregon, Nevada, Michigan, California and Missouri. Moreno Valley is the first of several planned Shango dispensaries in California. The company will also be opening its first distribution facility in California in summer of 2020.

For Turley, being part of a business in his hometown, where he was a multi-sport athlete at Moreno Valley High School, is a highlight in his post-NFL career.

“I’m so proud to be bringing a game-changing business to my hometown,” Turley said. “It’s pretty exciting and it kind of feels like I was destined for this.”

As a high school and college athlete, Turley never used cannabis until he sustained painful injuries and numerous concussions while playing in the NFL.

“I had friends who lost their college scholarships because they tested positive for marijuana, but I never needed it,” Turley recalls. “It’s ironic that now I’m a huge cannabis advocate and living proof that it can change your life and even save your life. This plant is shifting the conversation from being on drugs to getting off drugs. This is supposed to happen.”

Rexroad and Turley are the ownership group operating as SMV GROUP INC. The Moreno Valley facility contains 5,000 square feet of retail space.

The Shango Moreno Valley phone number is (866) 4SH-ANGO, (474-2646). The email address is socal.info@goshango.com.

Shango Moreno Valley is a member of the Moreno Valley Chamber of Commerce.

For more information about Shango and Shango Moreno Valley, visit www.goshango.com.

About Shango
Shango is an established, vertically integrated cannabis brand offering a full range of award-winning products, including flower, extracts and cannabis-infused edibles, in Oregon, Michigan and Nevada. The Shango brand has multiple full-service recreational and medical cannabis dispensaries in Oregon and Nevada along with a medical cannabis provisioning center in Michigan.

Shango will soon open a provisioning center in Bay City, Michigan, and a state-of-the-art cannabis distribution operation in Southern California. In Q2 2020, Shango’s Michigan operations will add a provisioning center in Hazel Park, as well as two extraction facilities, a commercial kitchen and an indoor cultivation facility.

A recognized leader in the cannabis industry, Shango sets the standards for product quality, consistency and business conduct. Shango is committed to cannabis education and is a fierce advocate of the safe and responsible use of cannabis products. For more information, go to www.goshango.com.

More About Brandon Rexroad
Brandon Rexroad has been dedicated to the cannabis industry since 1996 when California permitted the production and sale of medicinal cannabis. He is the Founder and CEO of Shango Cannabis, a recognized and respected leader in the cannabis industry and marketplace.

Rexroad leads the development and growth of the Shango brand in Oregon, Nevada and Michigan, as well as upcoming expansions into California, Arizona and emerging markets throughout the country.

In addition to his extensive cannabis industry knowledge and experience, Rexroad has more than 20 years of experience in all aspects of commercial, industrial and residential real estate, construction and
development.

He is responsible for building and managing Shango’s state-of-the-art cannabis cultivation facilities, as well as its cannabis research and development center. These facilities produce the full range of Shango medical and recreational cannabis products. They also produce flower, extracts and edibles for other select cannabis brands.

Rexroad also is the Co-Founder of Factory Direct Garden Supply, an importer and manufacturer of hoods, lamps, ballasts and other specialized equipment for the hydroponic gardening industry.

More About Kyle Turley
Turley played nine seasons in the NFL, selected 7th overall in the 1998 draft. He played five seasons for the New Orleans Saints and a year with the St. Louis Rams before a serious back injury sidelined him for the 2004 and 2005 seasons. He returned in 2006 as a member of the Kansas City Chiefs, where he spent the last two years of his career before retiring in 2007. He was All-Pro offensive tackle in 2000 and was invited to the Pro Bowl in 2001.

He has been involved in a number of player health issues post-retirement, particularly neurological problems resulting from his football career. He also is a board member of the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund.

Turley was featured in CNN’s “Weed 4: Pot vs Pills” hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, which focused on medical marijuana and CBD. He endorsed the use of cannabis and hemp products as a way to escape the addiction to opioids.

Diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) as a result of more than 100 concussions he received during his 10-years NFL career. Turley struggled with an addiction to painkillers, violent thoughts and suicidal tendencies until he started using medical marijuana.

“It saved my life,” he says. “I wouldn’t be where I am today, I would not have my family, my kids, my house, everything I have right now, if not for cannabis.”

To help save other lives, Turley founded the Gridiron Cannabis Coalition to use his story and those of other players to advance the use of marijuana as a valid medical treatment for neurological conditions and other athletic injuries.

“This plant has to be set free,” he says. “We have people committing suicide in football and other sports. How far do we have to go? Cannabis has played an important role in allowing me to personally manage pain, cope with CTE, improve my overall health and eliminate the need for prescription opioids that nearly cost me my life. If we can allow players and veterans to recover naturally with proper dietary and organic therapies, we should be doing so.”