“We are developing the content to air on local television broadcasters across the country,” says Aspen Decker, Executive Director of the Social Good Foundation, “on a platform outside of the internet that everyone knows… television.”

This series will tell the stories of the struggle, strength, and success of several brave people who have been touched by cancer. The programming will also include stories of families that are currently or recently battling cancer, and yet, even through adversity, manage to devote time and energy to make the world a better place, if even in the smallest of ways.

“With this broadcast content being produced in cities across the country, we can introduce local communities to the actual faces of those affected by cancer right in their own back yards,” said Decker, “By documenting this difficult process that many people fear, these brave families provide guidance through their battles, offering insight into beating cancer.”

Decker went on to say, “These stories will help educate and provide the tools needed to be ready to fight cancer. They provide the inspiration and courage to fight should a life be touched by cancer. And most importantly, that cancer can be conquered.”

The entire production is being funded by private donors, sponsors and partners, allowing the organization to continue allocating 100% of public donations directly to cancer care. The content will be developed in conjunction with the CoffeePledge Against Cancer program, which raises funds to fight cancer via drink purchases and donations at coffee partner locations during CoffeeWeek each year.

Production will take place over the next several months, in the Phoenix area, with tentative air-dates in September, to coincide with CoffeeWeek 2012. Additional production is being coordinated in 14 other cities to coincide with CoffeeWeek in their markets by 2013, 28 cities by 2014, and 44 cities by 2015, reaching over 90% of the United States TV Households.

The organization has already received hundreds of applications from families and individuals around the country that want to participate in the series. New applications are still being accepted online at coffeeplege.org/casting, and are expected to continue throughout the end of this year.

The world’s first social media movement to leverage the coffee industry to fight cancer, raised an impressive $62,000 in donations and sponsorships from its inaugural event in Phoenix, held at six coffee house locations valley-wide. The CoffeePledge Against Cancer program was founded to oversee charitable programs that directly affect the cancer community by raising funds through drink purchases and donations with participating coffee partners. 100% of the funds raised for this year’s event have already begun to help local families affected by cancer.

“We were absolutely amazed by the wonderful support Phoenix showed by coming out in mass numbers all week long.” Says Aspen Decker, Executive Director for the CoffeePledge Against Cancer, “We had no idea that we would raise this much for the first event and now have enough to launch charitable programs to impact the lives of many local families severely affected by cancer.”

Using social media to fuel the BUZZ about CoffeeWeek, the final tallies include an impressive growth of 42,000 new Facebook fans during the week, more than 27,000 tweets about CoffeeWeek, and over 13,000 Photos Shared about CoffeeWeek, making the event one of the most buzzed about events in Arizona’s social media history.

In addition to the online buzz, the offline coffee buzz was in full effect with more than 44,000 cups purchased to support CoffeeWeek, along with the many thousands of participants checking in to coffee houses to show support for the cause all week long. Some were tweeting, Facebooking, and YouTubing, while others snapped plenty of photos and enjoyed the company of the many friends, family and community rallying together for the Valley’s largest coffee social.

“Moving forward we will continue to develop the CoffeeWeek event with a hefty goal of increasing the total coffee host locations from 6 to more than 100 Valley-wide by 2012.” Says Decker, “We want to ensure anyone, anywhere in Phoenix, can participate regardless of where they may live or work.”

Planning has already begun for CoffeeWeek 2012, which includes many new exciting developments to watch out for in the coming months.  Stay tuned!

Phoenix CoffeeWeek brings together the largest players in the local cancer community along with community favorites in the local coffee industry to make history in the fight against cancer. This unique and exciting “CoffeeBuzz” campaign leverages social media, grassroots word-of-mouth, and volunteerism (over 20,000) in ways never before attempted in the history of cause-marketing.

Participating Coffee Shops:

Echo Coffee – 2902 N 68th St, Scottsdale (6a-10p M-Su)

Fair Trade Café – 1020 North 1st Ave, Phoenix (6a-9p M-Su)

Fair Trade Café – 424 North Central Ave, Phoenix (6a-5p M-F)

Press Coffee – 15279 N. Scottsdale Rd, Scottsdale (7a-9p M-S, 830a-6p Sun)

Press Coffee – 5410 E. High St, Phoenix (7a-8p M-T, 7a-9p F-Sat, 830a-5p Sun)

Carmel’s Coffee & Bakery – 4233 East Camelback Road, Phoenix (6a-3p M-Su)

SOCIAL MEDIA Each coffee partner location is slated to have its own mobile social media command centers in place to power the CoffeeWeek Tweet-Ups, Facebooking and YouTubing for the participants all week long. Each mobile command center will have teams of people monitoring all social media activity for their respective locations, including check-ins on Foursquare, Facebook and Yelp, while engaging all participants in photos, videos and live streams. All of which will be projected on a giant digital display to allow for participants at each location to interact with. The display will feature the latest tweets, pics, check-ins, videos, and donations coming in from the location interviews in real-time, allowing participants to stay on top of their involvement in CoffeeWeek.

The CoffeeWeek Headquarters (“HQ”) will be monitoring all mobile command centers and oversee proper syndication of all content throughout the social media networks, as it comes in. In addition, CoffeeWeek HQ will be engaging with users in live chats and will be webcasting live-streamed CoffeeWeek programming throughout numerous social networks at once, while monitoring the entire socialsphere for CoffeeWeek mentions, including millions of blogs, video networks, chat rooms and message boards.

Never in the history of charitable fundraising has anything like this been done. CoffeeWeek is leveraging a full-spectrum of social media platforms, influencers, and customized technology – to allow for real-time tracking and display on all screens; daily POS reports from all Coffee Host locations – to track all ongoing donations as they come in; and multiple social network monitoring and syndication tools to manage the tens of thousands of pieces of content steaming in every second of CoffeeWeek.

Aspen Decker, Executive Director for the CoffeePledge Against Cancer, brings a background of more than a decade of blogging, social media, and serial entrepreneurialism. As stated in his social accounts, “drinking blog juice in the morning and eat tweets all day long,” seem to be how he maintains his balanced daily nutrition… along with his big cup of coffee and ambition. Inspired by his mother’s fight with cancer for more than 15 years, Aspen has a plan and is seeing to it that the CoffeePledge does, in fact, reach each and every market nationwide to ensure the program can take flight and offer a recurring source of funds for the fight against cancer.

With user support growing by the thousands, the Valley’s largest coffee break ever is set to begin on Sept 5^th, in the Greater Phoenix Area in Arizona. The momentum of the CoffeePledge phenomenon has even enlisted the likes of many of the social media industry folks, bloggers everywhere, and even internet giants Yelp, Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook and Groupon to help fuel the coffee “BUZZ” to support CoffeeWeek.

With limited seating at many of these CoffeeWeek host locations, scheduled coffee breaks are filling up everywhere in preparation for the event. If you haven’t booked a coffee break yet on coffeeweek.org, the cut-off for special pricing (24 cups of coffee for $10) is Aug 31^st at 5pm PST.

If you haven’t heard already, each participating coffee location is slated to have its own mobile social media command centers in place to power the buzz with CoffeeWeek Tweet-Ups, Facebooking and YouTubing for the participants all week long. Each mobile command center will have teams of people monitoring all social media activity for their respective locations, including check-ins on Foursquare, Facebook and Yelp, while engaging all participants in photos, videos and live streams.

All social media activity will be projected on a giant digital display to allow for participants at each location to interact with. The display will feature the latest tweets, pics, check-ins, videos, and donations as they come in from the location in real-time, allowing participants to stay on top of their involvement in CoffeeWeek. If you snap a pic and post to twitter, you may just happen to see it within seconds on the digital display.

The CoffeeWeek Headquarters (“HQ”) will be monitoring all mobile command centers and oversee proper syndication of all content throughout the social media networks, as it comes in. In addition, CoffeeWeek HQ will be engaging with users in livechats and will be webcasting live-streamed CoffeeWeek programming throughout numerous social networks at once, while monitoring the entire socialsphere for CoffeeWeek mentions, including millions of blogs, video networks, chatrooms and message boards.

Never in the history of charitable fundraising has anything like this been done. CoffeeWeek is leveraging a full-spectrum of social media platforms, influencers, and customized technology – to allow for real-time tracking and digital displays; daily POS reports from all coffee host locations – to track all ongoing donations as they come in; and multiple social network monitoring and syndication tools to manage the tens of thousands of pieces of content pouring in every second of CoffeeWeek.

The new website features the official CoffeeWeek host locations and allows anyone to reserve coffee breaks during CoffeeWeek to help support the fight against cancer. Only a limited amount of coffee breaks will be offered for a mere cost of $10 each, which covers up to 24 people.

According to the website, “The way it works is simple – for just $10, you can host a coffee break for up to 24 awesome people during CoffeeWeek. Let them know that you are buying their first round of coffee as a courtesy to encourage donations to support this cause. 100% of all public donations will go directly to childhood cancer treatment.”

This low price offering was created by coffee hosts and the folks at the CoffeePledge to incentivize people and businesses to join in the excitement during CoffeeWeek.

“We simply want to get as many people in the doors with those complimentary cups of coffee to introduce them to the simple concept of good deeds,” says Aspen Decker, Executive Director of CoffeePledge Against Cancer, “I spend about $4 a day on my daily coffee and would be happy to donate at least that amount if someone bought my cup that day. It’s such an easy thing to do… buy someone a coffee and ask them to donate what they can to the cause. Or at least what you would normally spend anyways for your coffee fix.”

The CoffeeWeek.org website also allows any volunteers to sign up to work during CoffeeWeek, which sounds like it could be a ton of fun, and enough coffee to fuel an army.

With limited seating at many of these CoffeeWeek host locations, scheduling coffee breaks may be over-booked sooner than later. Once those seats are booked, only standing room will be available. One benefit, regardless if you are able to score a seat or not, is that each location will have an interactive display experience for participants to enjoy. All activity at the location will be tracked and displayed in a real-time, eye-candy driven digital experience that rivals some gaming expos. This fully-integrated, social media digital experience includes featured rotation of all pictures and videos tweeted, tweets, Facebook mentions, Foursquare and Facebook check-ins, as well as donation totals.

With totals being displayed in real-time for participants viewing pleasure, it also offers a great incentive amongst the individual coffee communities to rally against each other, in the spirit of competition, to raise the most attention, both socially and monetarily… all for a great cause… and see their progress in real-time.

Childhood cancer is a serious disease that a child should never have to endure, and the support of the community throughout the Valley has been tremendous to say the least. With more than 20,000 cups of coffee pledged by the community thus far for CoffeeWeek, and the many volunteers signing up every day, the coffee “Buzz” appears to be building steam toward making Arizona history.

Peter will sit as lead adviser on the CoffeePledge Roundtable of independent professionals, guiding the program on social media best practices, while also developing future strategies for user growth and cause awareness.

“We are extremely excited to have Peter on our team now,” says Aspen Decker, Executive Director of CoffeePledge Against Cancer, “Peter is an untapped resource of experience and skill within the social media space, which will help us expand our reach online across many social platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. Working from across the globe, in Australia, Peter also allows us to maintain forward momentum with our social media efforts outside of the constraints of U.S. only operations.”

Peter brings an established record of helping major brands craft innovative social media programs that influence behavior and create user connections that matter. Throughout his career, Peter has developed strategic, creative marketing platforms that drive business results. He has launched and built many successful businesses, such as Gee Media, an online advertising agency, which specializes in search engine marketing.

Peter holds a Bachelor in Business and Marketing from Southern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia, and continues to expand his knowledge through his extensive online operations.

“We are extremely lucky to have found this amazing guy, who genuinely cares about people,” says Decker, “Peter shares the same passion in the fight against cancer and volunteers countless hours of blood, sweat and tears to ensure the program is successful. As the CoffeePledge program continues to launch in markets across the United States, Peter will be at the forefront of the social media teams making everything work the way it should.”

The world’s first social media movement to leverage the coffee industry to fight cancer, has been coordinating with several local coffee roasters and coffee houses to host official COFFEEWEEK events, ensuring anyone looking to load up on their morning cup of joe can also support the fight against cancer on their way to work, or can simply come down during work for some great coffee.

Currently, the event producers and the coffee host locations are pre-scheduling cause-related coffee breaks at locations in North Scottsdale, Old-Town Scottsdale, Uptown and Downtown Phoenix. Some of the participating coffee brands involved with COFFEEWEEK include: Fair Trade Café in Downtown Phoenix, Press Coffee Roasters in North Scottsdale, and Echo Coffee in Old-Town Scottsdale. More than 20 additional local coffee companies are in talks to join COFFEEWEEK, and will be announced upon completed contracts.

In the meantime, event preparation is underway for the Valley’s largest coffee break in Arizona history. With more than 50,000 cups pledged in the Phoenix market – coordinating attendance will be a full-time effort.

As COFFEEWEEK builds steam, the CoffeePledge team has been inviting several local businesses to participate in the week-long event. There are many creative ways to integrate your community-centric business with COFFEEWEEK … from pledging to buy cups for employees and customers… to sponsoring coffee breaks at one or multiple locations… it seems that with the help of these local businesses, many Arizonans will have the opportunity to literally generate a coffee buzz across the state and fight childhood cancer simultaneously.

The world’s first social media movement to leverage the coffee industry to fight cancer has pledged to work with the Phoenix Children’s Hospital in order to develop a long-term plan to support the ongoing efforts of the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders.

“We are very pleased with this partnership with CCBD” said Aspen Decker, Executive Director for CoffeePledge Against Cancer, “They are amazing at what they do and are extremely passionate about the care they provide to the children… not to mention they will never turn any child away that needs treatment and they handle about 70% of the children with brain tumors in Arizona.”

“Last year alone, CCBD handled more than 13,000 cancer treatments and the workload is not decreasing” said Decker, “So we met with them to determine how we could make a direct impact on patient care and help support the families that are trying to keep their children healthy and alive through this difficult time in life.”

“For over 25 years, Phoenix Children’s Hospital has provided hope, healing, and the most highly specialized pediatric healthcare to children and families” said Genevieve Villegas, “Special Events Coordinator for Phoenix Children’s Hospital. “We’re Arizona’s only free-standing children’s hospital and one of the 10 largest in the nation. From our bright colors, playground and playrooms, family-centered services, equipment made just for children, and a staff specially trained to treat children, it’s evident that kids are our first – and only – priority.”

With more than 7,500 staff and volunteers working with the Phoenix Children’s Hospital, plans for hundreds of Valley-wide CoffeeBreaks are already underway for CoffeeWeek. And as Arizona CoffeeWeek approaches, the CoffeePledge team is coordinating with several local coffee roasters and coffee houses to deliver a wide variety of amazing coffee options during the week-long event for anyone to enjoy.

With more than 10 official host locations in Phoenix, North Phoenix, Scottsdale, North Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert and Tucson, you are sure to find a way to load up on your morning cup of joe on your way to work, while supporting this great cause. Donations will be accepted at all host locations and proceeds from drink purchases will also be donated to the cause from select host locations.

More than 400 million cups of coffee are consumed every day in the US, which means about 2.8 billion weekly.Clearly, many of us motivate ourselves each day with our beloved “wake-up juice.” So what better way to fight such a horrible disease, then with the power of something many of us love and drink every day?

At an average price of $2.50, those 2.8 billion cups could generate $7 billion dollars in buying power for just one week. The US government only spends about $4.5 billion per year toward the fight against cancer.

Think about it… in just one week, we drink up more than what the US government spends for an entire year toward the fight against cancer. Now imagine if just a portion of those coffee dollars went to fighting cancer. CoffeeWeek creates that opportunity.

CoffeePledge Against Cancer is getting bigger every day, with more than 10 official coffee host locations to support the cause across Phoenix, Scottsdale, Chandler, Gilbert, Tempe and Tucson.

The world’s first social media movement to leverage the coffee industry to fight cancer, has been coordinating with several local coffee roasters and coffee houses to host official CoffeeWeek events, ensuring anyone looking to load up on their morning cup of joe can also support the fight against cancer on their way to work.

“Our goal for each host location is to create the Valley’s largest coffee break ever,” says Aspen Decker, Executive Director of CoffeePledge Against Cancer, “and continue that coffee break all week long. With the growing number of local business supporters, we need to reach as many areas as possible to allow everyone to enjoy the festivities, support the cause and taste the best coffee the Valley has to offer.”

“The cool thing about these coffee breaks is that many of them are sponsored by local business supporters who share the same passion that we do in the fight against childhood cancer,” says Decker, “With those coffee break sponsorships, we have the ability to offer complimentary cups of coffee to anyone that visits a host location encouraging donations. Because of this goodwill method, those die-hard coffee drinkers don’t have to give up their daily fix anymore in order to donate. Additionally, it may introduce coffee enthusiasts to a new source for amazing coffee that they may have never found until now.”

As CoffeeWeek builds steam, the CoffeePledge team has been inviting several local businesses to participate in the week-long event. There are many creative ways to integrate your community-centric business with CoffeeWeek… from pledging to buy cups for employees and customers… to sponsoring coffee breaks at one or multiple locations… it seems that with the help of these local businesses, many Arizonans will have the opportunity to literally generate a coffee buzz across the state and fight childhood cancer simultaneously.

CoffeePledge Against Cancer™ has selected the Phoenix market for this year’s CoffeeWeek and is now coordinating with local volunteers and partners to make CoffeeWeek a success.

The world’s first social media movement to leverage the coffee industry to fight cancer, is now leveraging its growing online community offline in order to develop events in select markets nationwide, with 2011 planned for Phoenix, and 2012 events in development for several CA markets.

“With any large-scale project coordination, it’s important to scale within your means,” says Aspen Decker, Executive Director of CoffeePledge Against Cancer™, “we can only expand as fast as our local participating partners and volunteers can be put together.”

“We have determined two locations to host CoffeeWeek 2011 in Phoenix, and will disclose both as soon as we iron out the logistics involved,” says Decker, “Without a doubt, these are great spots hosted by two different coffee brands, that can easily support large crowds during the week-long event.”

As CoffeeWeek nears, the CoffeePledge Against Cancer™ team will approach local businesses in each market to pledge to purchase a single cup of coffee for each of their employees to support the fight against cancer during CoffeeWeek.

How it works is the business partner will receive a “First Cup on Us” postcard for every cup they pledge. These postcards will be redeemable at any participating coffee partner location for a complimentary cup of coffee and will be handed out to encourage donations by their recipients.

The actual wording on the postcard is as follows, “Proudly supporting the fight against cancer, we are buying this first cup of coffee to encourage your participation in CoffeeWeek. Proceeds from this drink went directly to fighting cancer. Since we are buying your first cup of coffee, we only ask that you also please donate whatever you can towards this cause upon redeeming this free cup of coffee. It is not required that you donate in order to redeem, however, we ask that you please consider how important every penny can be when it comes to fighting cancer.”

With more than 400,000 employees in the top 100 employers alone, it presents a unique opportunity to raise a significant amount of funds for local cancer research, treatment and education organizations.