Ruby Tuesday and Cultivate Wines Give $10,000 to New York City-Based Non-Profit The Lelt Foundation

MARYVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ruby Tuesday (NYSE: RT) and Cultivate Wines are joining together to celebrate and present $10,000 to the Lelt Foundation in New York, N.Y. The presentation will take place on Jan. 17, 2012, at the Ruby Tuesday at 585 7^th Avenue at 11 a.m.

“Through partnerships with companies like Cultivate and our own Ruby Tuesday Give Back program, we have an opportunity to positively impact every local community that we serve and become a force for good wherever we go”

The Lelt Foundation participated in Cultivate’s third quarter voting campaign and came in third place to win this grant. The Lelt Foundation’s mission is to bring entire families out of poverty in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and this grant will help support four of their programs to improve this neighborhood. This grant will help provide food for impoverished children and business opportunities for parents as well as support a tutoring and counseling center and a children’s shelter.

“Through partnerships with companies like Cultivate and our own Ruby Tuesday Give Back program, we have an opportunity to positively impact every local community that we serve and become a force for good wherever we go,” said Kimberly Grant, Ruby Tuesday Chief Operations Officer.

By partnering with Ruby Tuesday, Cultivate is able to leverage their unique philanthropic model of giving away 10 percent of all revenue through a democratic voting platform, allowing their consumers to choose where the money is going. This enables small, grassroots, or outside-the-box organizations to have access to funding they typically could not receive through the traditional avenues.

Organizations apply on the Cultivate website, and after vetting them, Cultivate posts between 15 and 30 organizations to their website for voting each quarter. Anyone can vote, and at the end of the quarter, the money generated is distributed to the top vote-getters. Together Cultivate Wines and Ruby Tuesday have already given more than $359,000 to 35 organizations across the U.S.

“We are incredibly proud of the difference we’ve made so far, but our bigger goal is that other companies will follow suit and copy our model. Especially in this era of government funding cuts to education, family services, and more, we need companies to step up to the plate,” said Ali Banks, Cultivate’s founder. “If we all join together, we can use capitalism to heal our country and revive the American Dream, all while still turning a profit!”

About Ruby Tuesday:

Ruby Tuesday, Inc. has Company-owned and/or franchise Ruby Tuesday brand restaurants in 45 states, the District of Columbia, 11 foreign countries, and Guam. As of December 4, 2012, we owned and operated 709 Ruby Tuesday restaurants and franchised 77 Ruby Tuesday restaurants, comprised of 33 domestic and 44 international restaurants. Our Company-owned and operated restaurants are concentrated primarily in the Southeast, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest of the United States, which we consider to be our core markets.

About Cultivate Wines:

Cultivate is a grassroots, American company that is part of the movement for “connected capitalism” — the belief that a company should not only exist to make a profit, but also to do good in the world, and that that should mean more than just writing a check to a national foundation for the sake of “corporate goodwill.” As such, Cultivate Wines gives 10 percent of gross revenue to non-profits supporting education and basic human needs through a democratic online voting platform where anyone can vote. Since launching in November 2012, Cultivate’s “GIVE” has donated $359,000 to 35 different organizations. In each of the last three rounds of the GIVE, the 1^st place winner received $50,000 and five runners-up each received $10,000.

About The Lelt Foundation:

The Lelt Foundation began in 2011 when Carrie Neel-Parker, Anja Wood, and Danielle Schmidt met in Ethiopia while they were each there to adopt children. They individually spent time at several government-run orphanages and developed relationships with the children and orphanage directors. They began repair projects and educational programs with the approval of Ethiopian NGOs and governmental officials. Shortly after returning to America, they filed to become a US non-profit organization called the Lelt Foundation. All Lelt Foundation members take no compensation or salary. A private donor pays their operating costs, so 100% of all donations raised go directly towards helping vulnerable children in Ethiopia.