Fifty-six restaurant locations across the Milwaukee area have pledged to donate a portion of their food and beverage sales to Children's Wisconsin on Aug. 27, marking the seventh year of an annual dining event born out of one family's harrowing brush with tragedy. The event, called Do Good With Food, was founded by the Milwaukee Kitchen Cabinet along with Gino and Leanne Fazzari, the owners of downtown's Calderone Club and San Giorgio Pizzeria Napoletana.
The Fazzaris started the fundraiser after their daughter Vivianna, born in 2013, nearly died shortly after birth. As reported by OnMilwaukee, Vivianna was taken to Children's Wisconsin after becoming lethargic and pale, and she stopped breathing as she arrived at the hospital. Doctors discovered a tear in her thoracic duct that allowed breast milk to leak into her chest, a rupture that caused one of her lungs to collapse and her heart to shift.
Vivianna spent time on a ventilator and nearly a month in the neonatal intensive care unit before recovering. She is now a thriving 13-year-old, according to the same account, and each year around her birthday, Gino and Leanne Fazzari donate 100% of proceeds from Calderone Club and San Giorgio to Children's Wisconsin.
A Rare Diagnosis Behind a Family's Mission
Vivianna's condition, congenital chylothorax, occurs when lymphatic fluid leaks into the pleural cavity through a defect in the thoracic duct, and it is estimated to affect only 1 in 10,000 births, according to Dove Medical Press. The fluid buildup around the lungs causes severe respiratory distress in newborns, underscoring how close the Fazzari family came to losing their daughter. Gino Fazzari said the Children's Wisconsin medical team saved Vivianna's life, and he has described the annual fundraiser as a way to help make similar miracles possible for other families, per OnMilwaukee's report.
Gino Fazzari, who also serves as a board member of the Milwaukee Kitchen Cabinet, said Do Good With Food is in its seventh year and has grown steadily since its founding, calling the 2026 event the biggest yet. The Milwaukee Kitchen Cabinet operates as a subcommittee of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association and focuses on strengthening the hospitality industry and the communities its members serve. Beyond this fundraiser, the subcommittee also organizes annual back-to-school backpack giveaways for Milwaukee Public Schools students and Thanksgiving meal drives, according to Urban Milwaukee.
Fundraising Totals Climb Toward $300,000
In its 2025 campaign, Do Good With Food raised $80,113 for Children's Wisconsin programs across more than 40 participating dining partners, according to the Wisconsin Restaurant Association. Since its 2019 inception, the initiative has raised nearly $300,000 for the hospital's pediatric health programs, per OnMilwaukee's reporting, with the Children's Wisconsin Foundation separately confirming more than $288,000 raised through 2025.
This year's proceeds will benefit the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit, its emergency department and trauma center, and its Nourishing Partners program, which helps connect families with nutritious food through hospital resources and community partnerships. Christine Baranoucky, vice president of engagement, stewardship and corporate philanthropy for the Children's Wisconsin Foundation, said community generosity helps ensure brighter, healthier futures for children and families, the outlet reports.
The Scale of Care Behind the Cause
Children's Wisconsin houses the state's largest Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, with 70 private rooms and 76 beds caring for more than 750 critically ill newborns each year, according to Children's Wisconsin. The hospital also operates one of only two American College of Surgeons-verified Level I pediatric trauma centers in the state, handling approximately 67,000 emergency department and trauma center visits annually, per the Medical College of Wisconsin. Children's Wisconsin named Jonathan Brouk as president and chief operating officer in January to oversee operations across its Milwaukee and Neenah campuses, a leadership shift Hoodline covered in an earlier report.
Calderone Club itself carries its own slice of Milwaukee dining history. The restaurant has operated on MLK Jr. Drive since 1983 and uses a thin-crust pizza recipe derived from the Caradaro Club, which introduced pizza to Milwaukee in 1945; the Fazzari family purchased the original recipe in 1969. Gino Fazzari also runs San Giorgio Pizzeria Napoletana, a certified authentic Neapolitan wood-fired pizzeria located two doors down from Calderone Club.
Dozens of Restaurants, One Shared Menu of Causes
The list of participating restaurants spans nearly every corner of Milwaukee's dining scene, from Blue's Egg + Bakery, Bobby's Bar Great Place Good Times, Bryant's Dousman House and Buckatabon Tavern and Supper Club to Café Benelux, Café Hollander, Carnevor, Centraal Grand Café & Tappery and Central Standard Crafthouse & Kitchen. Also joining are 600 East Café, Bacchus, Bartolotta's Lake Park Bistro, The Bay and Big Ed's Smoke Pit, alongside Mo's, Oak Barrel Public House, Old German Beer Hall, Old Germantown and Ristorante Bartolotta Dal 1993.
The Commodore, Culver's, District Fore, Harbor House and Joey Gerard's round out another slice of the list, while Lucky Devil's, Major Goolsby's, Maxie's Southern Comfort, McDonald's and Mister B's add still more names to the roster. Stone Creek Coffee's nine locations and Café Hollander's four Milwaukee-area spots are among the participants, along with Culver's three City of Waukesha locations and Water Street Brewery's outposts in Grafton, Lake Country and Oak Creek. San Giorgio Pizzeria Napoletana, Saz's State House, Steny's Tavern, Stone Creek Coffee, Story Hill BKC, Sweet Diner and Water Street Brewery are also on the list, many of them members of the Milwaukee Kitchen Cabinet.
Menus involved in the Aug. 27 event span breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, burgers, pizza, supper club fare and fine dining, giving diners across nearly every price point and neighborhood a way to take part. The breadth of the campaign reflects the scale of Wisconsin's restaurant industry itself, which stands as the state's fourth-largest private employer, with 13,567 eating and drinking locations generating an estimated $19.4 billion in sales and employing more than 278,000 workers statewide in 2025, according to the Wisconsin Restaurant Association.
