St. Jude Children's Research Hospital celebrates Thanksgiving with messages from its roster of celebrity supporters including Marlo Thomas, daughter of founder Danny Thomas, plus Sofia Vergara, Jennifer Aniston, Robin Williams, Michael Strahan, Luis Fonsi, and Shaun White:Continue reading...

You're running McDonald's and you're the world's most successful fast-food chain, growing lately all over the world. That would seem to indicate an ever-expanding (no pun intended) audience of consumers worldwide who want to partake of your burgers, fries, salads and smoothies — right?

Yet across the United States and halfway across the world, more folks seem to be falling all over themselves demanding that McDonald's stay as far away from them as possible. Blame an obesity fixation.

In the U.K., for example, a leading medical academic (acamedic? or in this case, activist-medic) is calling McDonald's "unhelpful" for being a leading sponsor of the London Olympics this summer, along with another "unhelpful" corporate ogre, that Coca-Cola Company.Continue reading...

IHOP celebrates its seventh annual National Pancake Day across the U.S. today, hoping to raise up to $3 million for the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and other local charities. Laura Kaeppeler, the 2012 Miss America, is one of the celebrities (with NFL Hall of Famer Steve Young) helping to give away a short stack of Buttermilk Pancakes in one of America's biggest annual customer appreciation and corporate philanthropic efforts. 

Children's Miracle Network showed its appreciation for IHOP's fundraising efforts (nearly $8 million raised since 2006) on its blog today, where it comments that "we always hear about the warm feeling IHOP visitors get when they make a donation to our U.S. hospitals before heading back out for their day."

IHOP also is giving kids free seeds as part of its sponsorship of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, which is likely to be the new #1 movie after this weekend:Continue reading...