After much planning and preparation, we proud to announce our charity project for 2007. With much ado, the Hot Zone Online proudly presents:


Raising the HEAT for Autism

A benefit to support Autism research through Autism Speaks

What we’re doing: For this year’s project, we have truly special stuff in store for the hot & spicy food-loving public. First and foremost, we will be releasing our own collectible hot sauce, entitled “Epidemic Proportions,” through the generosity and help from John Hard of CaJohns Fiery Foods and Jim Campbell of the Mild to Wild Pepper and Herb Co. They have donated the ingredients and bottles to make a collectible that nearly every collector should desire to have. The sauce is a unique concoction, and one of the few truly green sauces you will find. Composed of green fataliis, green red savinas, and a little bit of Naga Morich, it’s a sauce that the most diehard heat lovers would enjoy. The bottle bears a label design conceived by us and created by Darrell Fitch of Big Dawg Salsa. With a layer of blue and white wax over the round bottle, it’s gorgeous. Here are the label designs:

epidproportionsweb1.jpg
The front label


epidproportionsweb2.jpg
The back label

This sauce will be a limited run of 150 bottles. Why 150? According to the CDC, the incidence of autism is now 1 in 150 children. That’s both alarming and epidemic to say the least. The first bottle of this series will be sold for $100, with the rest being sold for $20 per bottle plus shipping. If you have a specific bottle number that you would like, we will honor all requests in the order that they are received. Payment can be made through Paypal, and we will have a special account set up to accept these payments.

Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, we will also be auctioning off gift baskets of hot and spicy food products which were donated by the manufacturers especially for this project. Each basket will contain a variety of items and will be available also through eBay. Our sponsors include:

Ashley Food Company, Inc.
My Favorite New Mexico Foods
Csigi Gourmet
Nando’s
Z and Z Honey Co.
Sauce2U.com

(Others are pending at time of this posting)

In addition, anyone wanting to simply make a donation of cash to help out the cause can do so as well. We will have available an account with Firstgiving, which is an online and fully secure way to make donations that will be sent directly to Autism Speaks at the end of the month-long project.

Why we’re doing this: Our five year-old son, Ari, was diagnosed with Autism at the age of three. This is a picture of Ari, who is a wonder and a joy to be around:

ariraisingheatpic.jpg
photo by Ryan Glaze

We really don’t have any clue as to why Ari developed Autism, but neither do most parents. The fact is that he’s the most lovable, endearing child you’d ever want to meet and has made amazing strides with his development thanks to early intervention and therapies. In fact, Ari is at or above the academic level of his peers right now.

We strongly feel the need to support the Autism community and research by doing what we can, and our blog is a perfect vehicle by which we can reach a lot of people. Most people reading this either have someone in their family who is affected, or has a friend who has someone in their family who is, or simply knows someone who has Autistic family members. By supporting research, education, and treatment through an organization such as Autism Speaks, we can do our part to try and do something to stem the tide of this devastating diagnosis. We hope that you will support us with this, so we hope that you will bid early and often and don’t hesitate to pick up some of these products to help support a truly worthy cause.

To summarize, here’s how you can support this cause:

- Purchase a collectible hot sauce bottle, entitled “Epidemic Proportions,” crafted by CaJohns Fiery Foods. It is a round bottle filled with a mega-hot sauce made with Naga Jolokia, Red Savina habaneros, and Fatalii peppers. It is a limited run of 150 bottles. If you want the #1 bottle, the cost is $100. The rest of the bottles are a mere $20, plus S&H. Pictures of the bottles as well as purchase information will be posted soon. Advance inquiries can be sent to us via our CONTACT FORM.

- Bid on a variety of hot & spicy food care packages which will be posted on eBay. The prices vary depending on what you want, but each one contains some yummy stuff you’ll love. We will be posting information on those eBay listings within the next few days.

- Online contributions to Autism Speaks through Firstgiving. You can find the website we have set up at The Hot Zone Online’s Firstgiving page, and this will be open for three months.

- Feel free to do more than one option. Buy a hot sauce AND make a donation. Any combination of the above options helps us get closer to our goal of raising as much money as possible with this project!!

IMPORTANT: 100% of the proceeds will be donated to Autism Speaks. Any purchases are tax-deductible and tax receipts will be generated from Autism Speaks once this project has ended on January 14, 2008. That’s right…your purchase is a tax deduction. Not a bad incentive, huh?!

More information about the items for sale will be posted in the next few days. Last year’s fundraising total was a mere $652. We know that we can do much better this year. Thanks in advance for your support!

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