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The Daily Dish Top Chef

Meet the Bravolebs Who Started Their Own Charities

 The Bravo family is an altruistic bunch.

By Laura Rosenfeld

When Bravolebs aren't working hard and playing hard, they're giving back. Charity events have been prominently featured on many Bravo shows, and while they sometimes serve as venues for a lot of conflict and fun to go down, they always help raise awareness for various non-profit organizations and the important causes they support.

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Though many Bravolebs have made helping others a big part of their lives, some have been so passionate about causes ranging from aiding the terminally ill to raising awareness for health conditions to helping at-risk youth stay on a trouble-free path that they founded their own charities. These five Bravoleb-founded non-profits are sure to inspire you.

1. Dina Manzo

If there's one thing we've learned from watching Dina Manzo on The Real Housewives of New Jersey, it's that she's incredibly passionate about her 501 c3 non-profit Project Ladybug. Dina founded Project Ladybug in 2007 to help provide financial and emotional support to children faced with life-threatening illnesses and their families. The organization does this through funds at three major hospitals around the country (St. Joseph's Children's Hospital in New Jersey, Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York, and Comer Children's Hospital in Chicago). Project Ladybug also hosts fundraising events, like the one we saw in the Season 6 finale of RHONJ. Hopefully, most of them are not nearly as dramatic.

2. Padma Lakshmi

After struggling for decades with endometriosis, an often-painful uterine disorder, the Top Chef host co-founded the Endometriosis Foundation of America in 2009 with Dr. Tamer Seckin. Not only has the organization helped bring awareness to the little-known health condition, but it also launched a joint interdisciplinary research facility for Gynepathology with Harvard Medical School and MIT in 2009. Just when you thought Padma Lakshmi couldn't fit anything else on her plate, she always goes and does something else that's amazing.

3. David Foster

One of the most glamorous moments of last season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was the night some of the ladies jetted off to Calgary, Canada to attend the 2014 David Foster Foundation Miracle Gala & Concert. Seeing the 'wives rock out with Steven Tyler was pretty cool, but what was even cooler was the fact that the event raised a record $8.2 million for the non-profit organization founded by David Foster in 1986 to help Canadian children receiving organ transplants and their families. Now that's music to our ears. 

4. Caroline Stanbury

 

Though Caroline Stanbury may often come off as a bit icy on Ladies of London, she actually has a big, warm heart underneath it all. Caroline co-founded the Save the Day initiative with her friend, PR maven Jenny Halpern Prince, to raise money for medical equipment for London's Great Ormond Street Hospital. The fact that Caroline can take care of her family, pursue her business ventures, and find the time to help others is really quite brilliant.

5. Lea Black

On The Real Housewives of Miami, the big gala Lea Black organizes with her husband Roy Black has always been the social event of the season. Even more important than attracting a lot of drama on the show, the Blacks' Annual Gala is one of the main fundraising events for the Consequences Charity & Foundation created by Lea to help at-risk youth through programs such as vocational training, camps, workshops, and extracurricular activities. With such an important cause at hand, it's no wonder the Blacks' Annual Gala attracts up to 850 attendees a year

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