Dozens of Milwaukee restaurants partner for 4th annual 'Do Good with Food' fundraiser benefitting Children's Wisconsin

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- If you're watching Milwaukee's own Gino Fazzari sling pizza dough or toss delicious pastas in thick sauces, you could easily call him a master in the kitchen.

The executive chef and owner of the Calderone Club and San Giorgio Pizzeria Napoletana has always loved cooking and working in the food industry.

But while the chef has a number of restaurant accolades, his most important title is the one of dad.

Fazzari shares eight children with his wife, Leanne.

And it's their fifth child, nine-year-old Vivianna, that inspired the couple to give back in an annual event they dubbed "Do Good with Food."

"She's got a great sense of humor, lots of energy," Fazzari told CBS 58's Ellie Nakamoto-White. "She's my girl."

But Vivianna wasn't always the strong and healthy girl who now loves softball and swimming.

Just days after she was born in 2013, the Fazzari's noticed her coloring looked off.

Despite numerous calls to the hospital where she was born where they received no answers, the couple rushed their daughter to Children's Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

When they arrived, Vivianna had stopped breathing.

“It was very emotional because there’s my daughter, five-days-old, she’s lying on this table lifeless, blue," Fazzari recalled. "No pulse obviously, no heartbeat."

It took days for staff to figure out that Vivianna had a thoracic duct tear.

“So, because it was ruptured, when she started drinking mother's milk, it was spilling in her cavity, and it was suffocating her. So, her lungs had collapsed on each other, she couldn’t breathe," Fazzari said. 

After a near-month long stay in the NICU, Vivianna was finally healthy enough to return home.

“We prayed and God worked his miracle, but he used Children’s to perform that miracle," Fazzari said. “We call her 'the champ' because she had to fight for her life for the first month on this Earth and she won.”

The couple thanks the workers at the hospital for saving their daughter, which is why in 2016, they created the fundraiser to pay it forward for other patients. 

It started with just their restaurants giving money raised on one specific day to Children's, and now four years later, more than 20 restaurants have joined in on the cause.

“Everyone said 'yes Gino, we’re on board, how can we help?'" Fazzari said. 

Thursday, Aug. 24 marked this year's Do Good with Food event. 

Last year, they were able to donate more than $40,000 dollars to multiple departments at Children's. 

"How do you repay anybody for saving someone's life?" Fazzari said. "As long as we're able to give back, I don't ever want this to stop."

The list of participating restaurants include: 

• 600 East Cafe
• Bartolotta's Lake Park Bistro
• Bacchus
• Bobby's Bar
• Calderone Club (Downtown) 
• Calderone Club (Fox Point)
• Carnevor 
• Harbor House
• Joey Gerard's 
• Mo's, A Place for Steaks
• Mr. B's (Brookfield)
• Mr. B's (Mequon)
• Pizza Man (Milwaukee)
• Pizza Man (Wauwatosa)
• Ristorante Bartolotta dal 1993
• San Giorgio Pizzeria Napoletana
• Saz's State House
• Vagabond
• Water St. Brewery (Delafield)
• Water St. Brewery (Grafton)
• Water St. Brewery (Oak Creek)