Where I've Been

I am sure you have been on the edge of your seat wondering why I haven't been posting.  While I realize this probably isn't true, I've been asking myself that very question.  Why haven't I been posting?

Honestly, I just got caught up in the demands of my everyday life as a mother of three school age children who had end of year awards, class parties, half days, middle school dramas, and who have only three hour camp days.  It's gotten the best of me.

I've been feeling guilty that I haven't kept up with my "promise" to keep my blog going by posting on a regular basis.  Have I failed because I didn't keep up with my promise, even if it was a promise to myself?  The purpose of this blog is to inspire philanthropy in our everyday lives no matter how big or small.  I realized part of keeping yourself inspired is to realize it's okay if sometimes your everyday life does not allow for your philanthropic goals,

Just because you didn't do what you thought you were going to do today, don't belittle yourself. Instead, pat yourself on the back for what you have done, look to tomorrow and do what you can the next day or the day after that.  The important thing to remind ourselves is it's not about feeling badly about what we haven't done, but knowing that we can always do something.

So if I post to this blog everyday or every month, to some degree, it doesn't matter.  The point is that at anytime I can chose to take a step toward fulfilling my philanthropic passion.  Think of something philanthropic you want to do, but haven't started, have felt frozen because of the size of the task.  Now, take a step back and think of something smaller, something simpler that you can do tomorrow.

Maybe you have been wanting to take your kids to volunteer reading to the kids at Storyteller, but haven't taken the time to make the arrangements.  Instead, the next time your kids want to watch TV, say sure, and you can make cards for the Dream Foundation while you are watching your favorite show.

Two Great Organizations by Kids

Kids are doing amazing things to help our local and world community.  Here are just two examples:

Hands4Others (H40)

 

This non-profit was started by four teenagers to help provide safe drinking water in poverty stricken areas.   They are well toward their goal of helping more than two million people in 500 villages around the world by 2015 have safe drinking water. 

I saw the founding members speak at the benefit film premiere of "Leave a Message" and was very impressed with these young community members. 

I was haunted by a couple of shocking statistics:

- The world community would be outraged if 20 airplanes carrying 300 people crashed everyday, but yet that is the number of people dying from lack of clean drinking water a day.

- A child dies every 15 seconds from lack of clean drinking water, probably the amount of time you've been reading about H40.  A $10 donation saves one child.



Keiki Paddle 

This is a non-profit my husband and children are involved with.  Although, I support them, I can't take credit for the amazing work done by these fathers and children.  

The Keiki Paddle was started by Dad's who had been participating in the Friendship Paddle for years and wanted a way to allow their children to experience the gift of helping others and to witness firsthand the power of community spirit and support.

Now in it's fourth year, The Keiki Paddle consists of 120+ children between the ages of 7 and 16 that will do a 10 mile relay paddle on Sunday July 24th to provided financial and emotional support for a child with a life threatening illness and a non-profit organization that helps children in Santa Barbara County.

This year's beneficiaries are six year old Ashley Vasquez-Castro, who is fighting Leukemia, and The Cancer Center of Santa Barbara's "I Count Too" Program.

This grassroots event is endearing on many levels:

• It was founded by father's.  
• It shares their passion of the ocean with their children to benefit someone in need
• Although the paddling participants are the kids, it's a father/child event as many Dad's are the support boat captains and boat crew
• It teaches children about philanthropy.  Not only must each child raise a minimum of $100, but there is now a Jr. Advisory Board which helps organize and make decisions about the event.
• It bring together the power and spirit of community. 

To learn more about the Keiki Paddle or to donate to this year's paddle  click here.

The Legacy of Our Manifest Destiny

Close you eyes and imagine poor.

What did you imagine?


What I imagined, did not include the images taken by Aaron Huey at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of the Lakota/Sioux Indians.  In Aaron's moving Tedx video he points out some of the following statistics about the residents of Pine Ridge:

• Umployment rate is 85%
• 30% of homes have no electricity
• 60% of homes have black mold
• 90% of residents live below the federal poverty line
• Tuberculosis is eight times higher than the rest of the nation
• Infant mortality rate is the highest on the continent and three times higher than the rest of the nation.
• School drop out rate is 70%
• 50% of men over 40 has diabetes
• The life expectant of men is the same as Afghanistan and Somalia

click HERE to see Aaron's full gallery of photo's.

From broken land treaties, to prisoners of war, to massacures of women and children, we are all familiar with the grave injustices done to the Native Americans in the quest of for our nation's Manifest Destiny.


TAKEAWAY:
I've been sitting on this post for months wrestling with the takeway. The purpose of this blog is to inspire you to take even the smallest of actions toward making our world a better place, not to depress you, make you feel guilty, or make you feel hopeless.  It is also to educate, as education is the key to a civil society. 

I am compelled by Aaron's TED video and his images because I was shocked at how, as a nation, the legacy we inflicted on the Native Americans over a hundred years ago is still being lived every day by the survivors.  Yet, as a nation, we continue to sweep it under the rug.  This is anything, but a free a civil society.


CALL TO ACTIONS:

This is not a simple issue, but some call to actions include:

1. Contact our government leaders to insist the terms of the original Fort Laramie Treaty are uphelded
2. Contact Hiefer to encourage them to start a project that benefits the Lakota/Sioux people like the project they did for Native Americans in New York.
3. Contact KIVA and encourage them to provide micro loans that benefit Native Americans as they begin to expand into US based projects.  80% of the money made on the reservation leaves the reservation because there isn't enough locally owned businesses to capture the money.
4. Contact Direct Relief International and encourage them to include projects that benefit Native Americans in their Direct Relief US program which provides free medications and supplies for clinics serving low-income and uninsured patients.

Help Your Favorite Nonprofit. Write a Review.

Want to do more to support the nonprofits you love? Write a review on GuideStar.

A great way to help nonprofits you support is to write a review on the organization's GuideStar profile. Reviews not only give the organization valuable feedback on your experience and give credit where it's due, they also can impact an organization's bottom line. Your review could inspire future donors and volunteers to support the organization—it's a fast, effective, and valuable way to take action.

Reviews you write will show up on both GuideStar as well as on GreatNonprofits.

Tips for Volunteering with Kids

As summer approaches, I am republishing the list of ways to volunteer with kids.

1.  Start Small - You are more likely to instill in your child a sense of giving if you can do more smaller acts than one large stressful one.  Both Penny Harvest and Pennies for Peace focus on the simple act of collecting and donating pennies.


2.  Model Giving - If you are involved in a charity help your child understand what you do to help that organization.  If you are on an event committee, bring your child the day of the event to help set up.  Bring them to the organization that benefits from the event.


3. Think of Ideas That Tie into Your Child's Interests - For example:

• If your child likes BMX racing, Legos or dance - have them do a lemonade stand to raise money to go toward helping someone get a camp scholarship for their favorite activity.  It doesn't matter if they raise enough.  It's just getting them to think about the idea that's important.

• If your child likes to read - have them go to a nonprofit pre-school, like Storyteller Children's Center or Main Family Resource Center and have them read to preschoolers.  They can also read for the Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic annual record-a-thon.

• If your child likes art - have them bring a simple art project to a non-profit preschool, like Storyteller Children's Center or Main Family Resource Center.  The Dream Foundation is always in need of handmade cards for their cleints.  You can also have your kids make cards for any holiday for the residence of a retirement community or for an organization like Angel's Bearing Gifts.

• If your child likes music - have them perform at a retirement community

• If your child likes sports - have them collect and donate used sports gear or have them enter a race and raise money toward a cause.

• If your child likes math - Have them collect and sell used toys for Kidz for a Cure,  founded by a kid.  You don't need much stuff to participate and your child can work on adding up the purchase tickets from your booth for the main checkout.  You can also give your child a dollar amount and a grocery bag and have them fill it with a certain dollar value of groceries to donate to Unity Shoppe. Make this a monthly ritual. You can volunteer on site at Unity Shoppe sorting food and stocking shelves as well.

•  If your child likes to be active - have them pick fruit for Backyard Bounty

• If you child likes animals -   have them volunteer at B.U.N.S.

 

• If you child likes to bake - have them bake and sell cupcakes for Cupcakes for Cancer.  A cancer surviving teen founded this organization and has been recognized by the Independent as a 2010 local hero. 

• If your family likes international travel - take a tour of Direct Relief International.  You can also arrange to make personal care and dental kits.  When traveling abroad, see if DRI has one of their many partners in that country and see if there are any supplies you can bring with you to donate upon arrival.          

• If your child likes the beach - You can adopt-a-beach via Coastal Clean Up  or just unofficially adopt-a-beach as a family and go and do a beach clean-up day.  You can also contact Heal the Ocean about their Junior Council.     

4.  Give charity as a gift for your child's birthday - this doesn't mean he/she doesn't get other gifts, but make one of their gifts a charity gift card so they chose where to spend the money.  See Global Giving  or Tis Best for examples.  Or, give them a KIVA gift card which they should get to give again and again each time the loan is paid back.


5.  Additional Resources:

All For Good - Website helps you find volunteer opportunities for both children and adults in your town.

77 Creative Ways Kids Can Serve - book by 16 year old Sondra Clark

Ripple Kids  and  KooDooZ  - websites focused on youth volunteerism.

Is the Gates Foundation Taking Advocacy Too Far?

Last week, the New York Times published this article questioning if the Gates Foundation's support of Education Reform has taken advocacy too far.

The article points out:

•  Mr. Gates is creating entirely new advocacy groups. It is bankrolling many of the Washington analysts who interpret education issues for journalists and giving grants to some media organizations.

• Then there are the less well-known advocacy grants to civil rights groups like the Education Equality Project and Education Trust that try to influence policy, to research institutes that study the policies’ effectiveness, and to Education Week and public radio and television stations that cover education policies.

• Over the next five or six years, Mr. Golston said, the foundation expects to pour $3.5 billion more into education, up to 15 percent of it on advocacy.

At one point, these actions are accused of being "Orwellian."  For those of you, like me, that did not read James Orwell's 1984 it refers to "being destructive to the welfare of a free society."

This got me thinking:

DOES GATES' ADVOCACY GO TOO FAR?

The last time I had a class covering advocacy was in high school. Admittily, I'm really a neophyte on this subject, but I am a concerned citizen of our nation.

They way I see it,  large oil companies have lobbied government for years in ways that have resulted in environmental and political outcomes that I do not agree with.

• Is this financial power and influence in our government now okay because I peronally agree with what Gates is accomplishing and see it as a ray of hope in changing our education system? 

• Is this a case where two wrongs don't make a right? 

• If the same amount of money was coming from multiple sources, still with the same views, would that make it less scrutinized.  

• At what point is financial support of advocacy okay and at what point is it not okay?

So, I don't have any big takeways this week, except that I wish I could now go back and take that college course on advocacy that I am sure I avoided.

You comments welcome!

Teacher Gifts With Meaning

Here is a reposting from part of my page on Giving Gifts.  Thought it was good timing with the end of the school year approaching. 

KIVA
I have wanted to give a microloan as a gift for years and have yet to do it.  This is the year!  I like this gift for two reasons.  One, the recipient gets to shop for the loan they want to give.  Secondly, when the loan is paid back, your recipient gets to loan the money again, and again.

Note:  In another post on this blog there are several negative articles regarding microfinancing, but I am standing behind it's value when done ethically and with integrity.


 12 Small Things
To purchase physical gifts from fair trade/socially responsible vendors check out this site.  It was suggested by a friend of mine who is hired by foreign governments to increase the business of fair trade items to benefit their local communities. 

Global Goods Partner 

My friend, mentioned above, was also hired by this company to do trainings with women in some of the countries this site supports.

Trade As One
I liked this site because it gives you background on the communities benefiting from your purchase. It not only has a selection of nice gifts, but also alternatives to items you buy for yourself probably not fair trade, like soccer balls.

Nest 

A beautiful site and is a nonprofit organization that empowers female artists and artisans around the world. Using a unique combination of interest-free microfinance loans, mentoring from established designers, as well as a market in which to sell their crafts, Nest helps its loan recipients create successful small businesses.

Global Exchange Fair Trade
You can google "fair trade gifts" and get numerous suggested.  This was one that looked particularly good.