Gulf Coast Life

Naples Winter Wine Festival Debrief

By Mike Kiniry,

Published February 1, 2018 at 1:14 PM EST

We sit down with Maria Jimenez, she's CEO of Naples Children’s Education Foundation. It's the charity behind the Naples Winter Wine Festival which raises millions of dollars every year. The annual event attracts international philanthropists, world renowned chefs, and some of the wine world’s best and brightest. The festival has raised 178 million dollars for charity since its founding 18 years ago.

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Mike Kiniry

mkiniry@wgcu.org

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Julie Glenn

(1971 - 2022)

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Rachel Iacovone

Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

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