Project Background
The Vines Foundation is a catalyst for positive change in Tunuyan, a city in the West of the province of Mendoza, Argentina, exploring ways to empower our community to enhance health, end hunger and overcome hardship, as well as promote sustainable livelihoods. As the philanthropic arm of The Vines, an Argentine farming, winemaking and hospitality company (vinesofmendoza.com, vinesresortandspa.com) with deep connections to international resources through our clients in the US, Europe, and Brazil, the Foundation is leveraging these resources to meet the immediate and long-term needs of the local community. Most importantly, we are building capacity within our community and the organizations we work with, and seeking to engage community members and organizations, local and national businesses, and the municipal government to address complex challenges.
Definition of Opportunity
In the fall of 2021, and in the spring of 2022, the Vines Foundation partnered with the University of Notre Dame Development Advisory Teams (DAT) to create a strategic and inspirational mission and vision statement for the Foundation, which will serve as guiding principles for the foundation as it expands its community work. We seek to communicate through our work the importance of accompaniment and co-creation, in which we see our community members as partners who are the first and best teachers capable of enacting change and creating opportunities for their families and neighborhoods. Working together with the community and the DAT, we developed strategies to bring together an effective working/community group of local leaders to guide the development process.
Currently, the community engagement efforts of the Foundation are structured around:
Engaging in co-creative efforts to realize sustainable projects in the community.
Maintaining and developing relationships with community members to strengthen a chain of transparent communication and feedback throughout project development and implementation.
Creating a network of local and regional organizations and businesses to partner with the comedores to allow for simultaneous investment in capacity-building and increased community independence. Develop best practices for increasing presence of Social Corporate Responsibility (RSE) in alliance’s work.
Currently, the project-based efforts of the Foundation are structured around:
Providing food weekly to the comedores (soup kitchens) of Tunuyan, which serve as community spaces where children can receive meals during the week and interact with each other.
Increasing comedor capacity through workshops and educational and recreational opportunities to be held on-site.
Developing a community garden at 3 different comedores, which will serve as a pilot project for the community to grow in independence and learn new skills.
Maintaining a dog refuge/shelter on property grounds to care for, vaccinate, and facilitate adoption for stray dogs. We are also seeking to evaluate resource dedication towards facilitating spaying/neutering for street dogs in the community
Definition of Success
Through working with a fall 2022 DAT, we hope to generate interest, excitement and actions in support of The Vines Foundation. We plan to firmly establish the base for expansion and replication of our successful projects and develop strategies to increase the monetary and non-monetary resources and capacities of the foundation.