Wine Country Giving Back to the Ones Who Work the Harvest
In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, USA Weekend and Points of Light are recongizing the 2013 Make A Difference Day honorees, who will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 10. Here we tell the story of an organization that sought medical care for people in danger of losing their eyesight.
A patient receives care for her eyes at the Eye Care Institute on Make A Difference Day.
To many, Sonoma County, Calif., summons images of fine wines, lush scenery and elegant dinners. But Daniel Rabkin, program manager of
, and his colleagues, are well aware that many in the community live in poverty with limited access to medical treatment.
On Make A Difference Day, Oct. 26, Rabkin banded together with a group of ophthalmologists and their staffs to save the eyesight of 24 area agricultural workers and day laborers and another six cataract patients in need.
“By the end of Make A Difference Day, 30 people with limited means who never expected to get the help that they needed – and at no cost – were seeing a bright future ahead,” says Rabkin.
Staff from the Eye Care Institute and Operation Access come together on Make A Difference Day.
Ophthalmologists Robert Anderson, Gary Barth and Daniel Rich of the
in Santa Rosa, Calif., fueled the project. They performed surgery on agricultural workers with pterygia, a blinding growth often caused by excessive exposure to sunlight.
On the same day, Dr. Naveen Chandra and his surgical team at Kaiser Permanente in Martinez, Calif., restored the sight of the cataract patients. Those in need learned of the program through news media and word-of-mouth campaigns organized by Rabkin and others.
“These patients are enormously and rightly grateful to the doctors who donated their time and skill for surgery that the patients definitely needed but could not afford,” says Sally Giovinco, office manager of the Eye Care Institute. “They lined up all the way out the door to check in an office most had never been to before and some didn’t speak any English. … From beginning to end, the patients and all of us were privileged to be part of something so completely positive.”
Check out the other Make A Difference Day honorees at www.makeadifferenceday.com/winners.
More Than 20,000 Kids Volunteered in One Day Because of This Guy
In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, USA Weekend and Points of Light are recongizing the 2013 Make A Difference Day honorees, who will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 10. Here we tell the story of a New York author who inspired thousands of children across the country to volunteer.
Nick Katsoris
It’s one thing for children’s book authors to write stories about good deeds, but it’s another to actually spur young readers into action.
Nick Katsoris, 47, author of the “Loukoumi” series of children’s books, used Make A Difference Day to
to collecting canned goods for homeless shelters.
“The `Loukoumi’ books are all about teaching kids lessons in life so that they can make a difference in their lives and the lives of others,” says Katsoris, who has participated in Make A Difference Day since 2009.
Two of his books “are dedicated to a sweet woman named Daisy who was a cleaning woman in an office I worked at almost 20 years ago. Daisy gave me a pair of gold cuff links simply because I said ‘good morning’ to her. It taught me that even the smallest good deed could make a big difference in someone’s life.”
Inspired by author Nick Katsoris, Grace LaFountain holds a bake sale to raise money for the Utica, N.Y., zoo.
Katsoris is based in Eastchester, N.Y., but he made his effort nationwide through partnerships with the charitable organizations
, all of which reached out to schools, libraries and other child-focused organizations.
Adults read the “Loukoumi” books to kids and had them sign “I will Make A Difference by…” pledges. The kids then performed the good deeds on Oct. 26.
Katsoris’ own son, 9-year-old Dean, pledged to make and sell bracelets to raise funds for an animal rescue charity.
“These acts of kindness are values that kids are learning now that will follow them throughout their lives,” says Katsoris, “and teach them the importance of helping others.”
Check out the other Make A Difference Day honorees at www.makeadifferenceday.com/winners.
Abandoned at Birth, This 11-Year-Old Knows How Much This Small Gift Means to a Scared Child
In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, USA Weekend and Points of Light are recognizing the 2013 Make A Difference Day honorees, who will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 10. Here we tell the story of a California girl who helps local police and fire departments calm scared children with donated stuffed animals.
Jessica Carscadden stands next to a fire truck adorned with stuffed animals from her We Care Bears Project.
Jessica Carscadden – abandoned at birth because of facial deformities – found comfort in stuffed animals when she was adopted at age 5. While cleaning out her room one day a few years ago, she decided to donate her loved but unused stuffed bears to other kids.
“I am only one girl and I took all of my animals to the fire department,” Jessica says on her
was born. The project accepts donated stuffed bears for police and firefighters to give to injured or frightened children on emergency calls.
On Make A Difference Day, Oct. 26, 11-year-old Jessica of San Diego rallied volunteers and oversaw donations of about 3,000 stuffed bears. About 60 volunteers recruited by Jessica through her website, news media announcements and word-of-mouth campaigns, sorted, tagged and filled about 580 bags with bears (exceeding her goal by 80 bags).
“As a result of the efforts of the We Care Bear Project on Make A Difference Day every police car in San Diego [had] a bag of stuffed animals for children they meet on calls,” says Kathleen Carscadden, Jessica’s mom. “The heart of the We Care Bears Project is children helping children, and this event was no different – the majority of volunteers at the event were schoolchildren.”
Jessica’s efforts have resulted in an outpouring of support for the project and Jessica herself.
“Jessica’s commitment to her community has been inspiring, says Councilman Mark Kersey of San Diego. “She has translated her personal experience into a project that has gone on to help children throughout San Diego. Because of her work many children in our city are being comforted during a scary time in their lives.”
Check out the other Make A Difference Day honorees at www.makeadifferenceday.com/winners.
These Teens Surprised Themselves By Putting Others First
In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, USA Weekend and Points of Light are recognizing the 2013 Make A Difference Day honorees, who will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 10. Here we tell the story of a group of Florida teens from a low-income community who started a new tradition of volunteering.
Escambia Charter School students volunteer on Make A Difference Day by doing yard work
Some of the most troubled teenagers in one of Florida’s poorest counties attend tiny
, an independent high school in Cantonment, Fla., near the Alabama line. Eighty percent of the 120 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. Many were rejected by public schools for bad behavior or grades. But on Make A Difference Day they surprised themselves, and the community, by putting others first.
Starting a month ahead, students collected or contributed 300 pounds of canned goods and snacks for a food pantry and the
, as well as 60 boxes of clothes for three shelters. Early on Oct. 26, 20 students, with 15 parents and teachers, organized and delivered the donations — then split into teams to do yard work for four elderly or disabled homeowners.
Escambia Charter School students sort and pack clothes for local shelters on Make A Difference Day.
“The students were so proud,” says Principal Jerome Chisolm. “The community didn’t expect this from our kids. The kids didn’t even expect it from themselves. Helping others shows them the world doesn’t revolve around them.”
“It made me feel great,” says sophomore Gerico Mackey, 16. He raked leaves, picked up broken limbs and planted flowers at two houses. “This was new for me, helping people who can’t do for themselves.”
, a shelter for abused women and their children in Pensacola, often receives donations of tattered, outdated clothing, says residential programs director Marsha Travis. So she was impressed that “these kids took the time to sort through” a dozen boxes of clothes, including teen sizes few people donate. “This school obviously wants students to understand the value of giving back,” she says.
That’s right, says Chisolm: “Make A Difference Day was the seed for getting our kids permanently involved in volunteering. We’re thinking of a slogan: Enter to learn, depart to serve.”
Check out the other Make A Difference Day honorees at www.makeadifferenceday.com/winners.
7,000 Reasons This Teen’s Determination Paid Off
In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, USA Weekend and Points of Light are recognizing the 2013 Make A Difference Day honorees, who will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 10. Here we tell the story of a New Jersey teen determined to help homeless families in his community.
Elijah Rodriguez posts a sign for the fundraiser he organized for Hurricane Sandy victims.
Elijah Rodriguez confronted the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy every day as a junior at
in Lincroft, N.J. A year after the storm, friends and classmates still couldn’t go home, because they had no homes to go to.
Elijah empathized. His family had once been displaced by a fire. But a visit to Union Beach Borough Hall made him realize how many hundreds of families were still homeless, and he asked how he could help.
Officials put Elijah in touch with Pastor Carl Williamson of the
in Union Beach. Williamson appreciated Elijah’s enthusiasm for organizing a Hurricane Sandy Relief Walk but advised that he wouldn’t have much time to help him.
“You can’t live here in this area without knowing the devastating effects the storm has had on people’s lives,” Williamson says. “But I thought (the walk) would only raise a small amount of money.”
He underestimated Elijah. With only a few weeks left before Make A Difference Day and the first anniversary of the storm, and with help of family and his school, Elijah created pledge forms and flyers, booked the school jazz band to entertain, lined up sponsors, solicited contributions of bagels and water (the necessary fuel of any Saturday morning in New Jersey), and arranged for the mayor of Union Beach to come speak.
More than 100 walkers showed up, with donations totaling more than $7,000.
A short while later, Elijah returned to Williamson, this time with a check.
“He was someone who really took this seriously,” Williamson says. “He really wanted to make an impact, and he really cared about the people in Union Beach and the Bayshore area.”
The money Elijah raised could have paid for the demolition of two damaged homes or the pouring of three foundations for new homes. Williamson let Elijah make the call.
Elijah decided to rebuild.
Today, those foundations have been laid, and the houses are in various stages of construction, Williamson says.
“There is no place like home,” Elijah says. “I wish all Hurricane Sandy victims can return to their homes soon.”
Check out the other Make A Difference Day honorees at www.makeadifferenceday.com/winners.
Hey Sugarland Fans – Here’s Something for You
Kristian Bush – Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, producer and one-half of the platinum-selling country duo Sugarland – will be among the featured speakers at Points of Light’s Conference on Volunteering and Service, June 16 -18 in Atlanta.
Kristian Bush
Currently on the road with his 2014 Put Your Soul in It Tour, Bush returns to his hometown of Atlanta for an exclusive appearance at Conference’s closing session. A passionate advocate for the power each of us has to change the world, Bush strongly supports music education in schools, in collaboration with organizations like the Recording Academy’s Grammy U. He also partners with Global Citizen, a website and app that revolves around a simple premise: that every person can play a role in realizing the end of extreme poverty by 2030.
Bush founded Sugarland in 2002; in 2004, he and singer Jennifer Nettles exploded onto the music scene. They have sold more than 22 million albums worldwide, achieved five No. 1 singles and won numerous awards, including trophies from the Grammys, AMAs, ACM Awards, CMT Music Awards and CMA Awards. In October of 2012, they were inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Bush is a graduate of Emory University in Atlanta.
Join Kristian Bush, Chelsea Clinton, Tyler Perry, Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree the Rev. Dr. C.T. Vivian and nearly 5,000 other change-makers at Conference this year. Take a look at this year’s featured speakers and sessions and make sure you register soon – early bird rates end April 25!
A Lego Movie Before `The Lego Movie’
In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 6-12, USA Weekend and Points of Light are recongizing the 2013 Make A Difference Day honorees, who will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., on April 10. Today we tell the story of a California teen using Legos for good.
Bailey Snow, center (in white shirt), shows donated Legos alongside BrickDreams volunteers
Bailey Snow is a 16-year-old from Granite Bay, Calif., with a full slate of high school classes, a course at the local junior college, a part-time job at Starbucks, a place on his school’s trap-shooting team and a regular round of SAT prep classes on his schedule.
He was too busy to see “The Lego Movie” when it came out, but he has long known the power of Lego bricks. He himself appears in
, solicits Lego donations from his community, sorts and packages the bricks in empty tennis ball containers and distributes them to organizations working with children in need.
On Make A Difference Day, Oct. 26, he and eight volunteers packaged 60 to 70 cans for distribution to local police departments, domestic violence organizations and
Watch EvanTubeHD’s Make A Difference Day video featuring BrickDreams and Bailey Snow, pictured right.
“Say a kid is a victim of domestic violence,” he says. “They have to leave the house quickly and they don’t have a lot of things. They can go to shelters and get clothes and toiletries, but they can’t get something like Legos to help them escape. I’ve heard from police who tell me they like Legos for when they go out on domestic violence calls because they can give it to a kid and it helps out during a stressful time.”
Trudy Harris, development manager at the
, says the club gives out the Lego containers as awards for good service or even as Christmas gifts.
“They love anything to do with Legos, and the cool thing about (Bailey’s) Legos is he makes sure each one of the canisters has a little character in it for the kids to play with,” she says.
Bailey’s Make A Difference Day event enticed help from the family behind
, a prominent YouTube channel featuring family-friendly videos with toy reviews and cool special effects. Participants produced a video of the day’s activities, which has generated more than 433,000 views from around the world. (Watch it
.)
Started in May 2012, BrickDreams has so far collected and distributed 936 cans of Legos – that’s 468 pounds!
Check out the other Make A Difference Day honorees at www.makeadifferenceday.com/winners.
More Kids Have Books to Read Because of What This Company Did
This post is by Jackie Norris, executive director, and Yvonne Siu Turner, senior manager, corporate resources and programs, of the Points of Light Corporate Institute. It is part two in a seven-part blogCSRWireseries exploring the community engagement practices of winning companies in The Civic 50, an initiative launched in 2012 by Points of Light, the National Conference on Citizenship and Bloomberg. The Civic 50 identifies the top 50 community-minded S&P 500 corporations that best use their time, talent and resources to improve the quality of life in the communities where they do business.
Jackie Norris
Do you remember your favorite children’s book? Was it “Goodnight Moon,” “Where the Wild Things Are” or “James and the Giant Peach”? For many of us, being read to by our parents is a fond childhood memory, and something that also got us on the right track for success later in life.
In many parts of the country, however, millions of children in low-income families have no access to books. They haven’t been exposed to reading aloud. And when they start kindergarten, they’re not on the same playing field as the other kids in their class.
A Literacy Crisis
Addressing this literacy crisis is something Bring Me A Book is dedicated to solving. By creating age-appropriate school libraries and organizing workshops, the California-based nonprofit provides access to new books to underserved schools, and helps parents and teachers understand the importance of reading aloud to children every day.
But as is often debated scale is critical for nonprofit initiatives to thrive and maximize their impact, which is where the private sector can step in and help. Bring Me A Book is no exception, and recently welcomed support from Morgan Stanley to think strategically about how they could reach more children – but the financial services company didn’t just write a check.
Yvonne Siu
In their latest Strategy Challenge pro bono volunteer competition, a team of finance and legal professionals from Morgan Stanley worked with Bring Me A Book to provide recommendations for an ambitious expansion of its programs through digital media using new technology and training for parents and caregivers.
“Bring Me A Book is walking away from this experience with a blueprint for our future work that we believe is game changing in the field of early literacy. We now have an actionable plan that has all of the components for success: an understanding of our market, potential partners and a resourcing model that will immediately allow us to offer increased book access programs to support our preschool families in California,” said Mialisa Bonta, executive director of Bring Me A Book.
The Strategy Challenge wasn’t only a game-changer for Bring Me A Book, it was also a transformative experience for Morgan Stanley’s volunteers.
As Meryl Craig, an associate with Morgan Stanley who participated on the team providing pro bono strategic consulting to Bring Me A Book, put it, “Strategy Challenge was an incredible opportunity to collaborate with an inspiring organization. Bring Me A Book now has additional tools to help them combat early childhood illiteracy, and they have implemented our final recommendation to pursue the use of digital media. Seeing the continued impact of Morgan Stanley’s work in the local community is truly rewarding.”
Over the past five years, Morgan Stanley’s Strategy Challenge has delivered more than 32,500 hours, valued at about $4.9 million, to 61 nonprofit organizations.
“Morgan Stanley employees value the Strategy Challenge because it’s a special opportunity to give back to their community while leveraging their own talent and expertise. We work together with the nonprofit participants to navigate significant programmatic issues like scalability, geographic expansion and organizational optimization,” said Joan Steinberg, head of Morgan Stanley Community Affairs and president of the Morgan Stanley Foundation.
Recognizing Morgan Stanley’s Organizational Commitment to Community
That is just one reason why Morgan Stanley was ranked #1 in Organizational Commitment from The Civic 50, a ranking of America’s most community-minded companies. The Organizational Commitment dimension evaluates the scope of a company’s community engagement program, such as how broad-based employee involvement; community investment, advocacy and leadership are in the program.
At Morgan Stanley, community engagement is seen as much more than traditional philanthropy. A critical and integrated part of leadership development for the firm, engagement is about using distinctive competencies to increase the impact of nonprofits.
Even more critically, the firm focuses on long-term partnerships, creating year over year value: Morgan Stanley doesn’t just want to help charities; it wants to make them stronger. To do so, the firm has created a broad continuum of programming from high volume projects like Global Volunteer Month, to high impact initiatives like Strategy Challenge and its Nonprofit Leaders Program, which trains its most senior officers to be better nonprofit board members.
Like the firm’s support of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. The hospital was founded in 2003 with employees raising $62 million for its Building Campaign – an unprecedented effort in New York City. Nearly 1,000 employees volunteer at MSCH throughout the year, collecting books or entertaining children at the annual carnival or pirate costume party.
Late last year, Morgan Stanley also organized a five-week celebration of the hospital’s 10th anniversary as one of the top children’s hospitals in the U.S. The firm hosted a speaker series with leading physicians and invited employees to volunteer with child life specialists to visit and entertain children at the hospital.
“Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital is a cornerstone of the firm’s global commitment to children’s health,” says Steinberg. “The 10th anniversary celebration was an opportunity to better understand and appreciate what the Hospital does for thousands of families in the community, including our own, and what the firm’s 40-year-long relationship with New York-Presbyterian will mean for future generations.”
High school graduation rates are at a 40-year high, but there are still tens of millions of young people who leave high school without diplomas, get stuck without jobs or in dead-end ones and never get to college or careers.
We’re excited to announce a new approach to the problem, one that uses volunteer service as a pathway to success.
ServiceWorks is a public-private partnership powered by AmeriCorps, the Citi Foundation and Points of Light. The initiative will engage 25,000 youth, age 16-24, in service and build a large-scale volunteer response to the crisis of low college and career attainment.
How? By giving young people training in critical 21st-century leadership and workplace skills, the chance to build professional networks and connections to their communities, and the opportunity to use their new skills by participating in and leading volunteer service projects. And by giving thousands of volunteers – including Citi employees – the chance to participate as success coaches and mentors.
Tracy Hoover
Thanks to a $10 million commitment from the Citi Foundation, ServiceWorks will become the nation’s largest corporate-sponsored AmeriCorps VISTA program, deploying 225 AmeriCorps VISTA members in 10 cities – Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Newark, San Francisco, St. Louis and Washington, D.C. – to help lead the effort.
Why use service as a strategy? Research shows that young people involved in service exhibit a significant change in “life skills such as showing increased concern for others, improved ability to problem solve, and improvements in self-perceptions of potency – the ability to make a difference in a community.”
And a 2013 study by the Corporation for National and Community Service shows that volunteering is associated with an increased likelihood of finding employment for all volunteers regardless of a person’s gender, age, ethnicity, geographical area or job market conditions.
ServiceWorks will demonstrate that the coupling of national service and volunteer service can help level the playing field for low-income young people, not only by decreasing the opportunity gaps they face but by increasing the likelihood that they will stay in school and find good jobs.
ServiceWorks will make real the promise of the President’s Task Force on Expanding National Service and his call for public-private partnerships to solve tough challenges.
In two words or one, service works.
For His Courage to Compromise, President George H. W. Bush Receives Kennedy Library Foundation Honor
President George H. W. Bush today was named a recipient of the 2014 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for a decision that – though it may have cost him personally – benefitted the greater good.
President George H. W. Bush, during
his presidency (George Bush
Presidential Library and Museum)
The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation reported that the award committee selected President Bush, Points of Light’s founder, “in recognition of the political courage he demonstrated as president when he agreed to a 1990 budget compromise which reversed his 1988 campaign pledge not to raise taxes.”
Jack Schlossberg, President Kennedy’s grandson, said President Bush “risked his reputation and ultimately his political career by forging an important compromise on the budget in 1990 that moved our country forward, and should not be forgotten.”
Schlossberg, who is a member of the Profile in Courage Award committee, will present the award in Boston on May 4. The foundation announced it will also be honoring former Uvalda, Ga., mayor Paul W. Bridges for jeopardizing his career by condemning a controversial immigration law in Georgia.
Do you know someone who showed courage while serving others? Nominate him or her for a Daily Point of Light Award, an honor President Bush created during his presidency.
