Although food kitchens and homeless shelters are doing all they can to feed and house those living in poverty, there are many non-basic necessities they simply can’t provide. Clark Paradise saw this need and started Your Grandmother’s Cupboard to fill in the gaps. His organization provides personal care items like soap and toothpaste, along with clothes and blankets.
Wanting to give back to the hospital that helped him, Tony Kernan volunteered to update the Cardinal Hill Rehabilitation Hospital’s patient orientation book. He compiled information on different types of brain injury and their affects to equip families and patients with clear information on what they might be facing. Tony wants each patient to be as informed as possible so they can focus on the most important aspects of their recovery.
Cyndie Shepard founded Creating the Future, a program that offers direct academic tutoring in elementary, middle and high schools that lack funding, staffing and energy, to improve the achievement gap in her community. By providing relationships and academic help to diverse, low-income students, Creating the Future inspires young students to get engaged in their schools and dream big about their futures. In addition to receiving tutoring and mentoring, more than 15,000 fifth-graders have toured a university campus, placing a vision of themselves in college and setting the goal of post-secondary education in their minds.
A former foster child herself, Helen Ramagalia founded Foster SuperStars to serve as a mentoring program for foster children in her community. The organization matches kids with Life Partners to help them stay on a track to academic and life success, offers a summer camp and volunteering opportunities. She also works to bring together the community’s various foster service organizations to maximize services and make sure no child falls through the cracks in the system.
The Mississippi Boy choir is a volunteer-driven organization whose mission is to enhance young men’s educations, character and social lives through song. Led by Artistic Director Lelon Thompson, boys from all walks of life learn to love singing and become an efficient, cooperative team.
But the Boy choir is much more than making music. The state’s first and only incorporated nonprofit boy choir, the organization enhances education through the arts and offers boys age 6 to 18 training in leadership, responsibility, teamwork, self-discipline and valuable social skills. Hard work goes hand in hand with camaraderie, fun and the benefits of musical education.
Bullying is no longer about the strong picking on the weak. Bullying has been replaced by a 24/7 online monster – cyber bullying. Children, teenagers and even adults that interact via social networking have fallen prey to cyber bullying – whether they have witnessed or experienced it.
David Zhao, a victim of cyber bullying in the past, co-founded the End to Cyber Bullying Organization in late 2011 in the effort to create a safer cyberspace. As the president of ETCB, he works with influential individuals to raise awareness, offer compassionate services and provide valuable information on cyber-bullying. With the aid of his Internet marketing firm, ETCB has reached more than 2 million online users within months of its incorporation.
Today, the End to Cyber Bullying Organization boasts more than 200 volunteers worldwide committed to inspiring others to take action and grow a safe cyber world. ETCB is continually reaching millions of online users across the globe. Its volunteers and board of directors are working hand-in-hand, starting ETCB initiatives and workshops in their respective communities around the world
After breaking his glasses in 2010, Yash Gupta realized while waiting a week for a new pair that it was almost impossible to learn anything in his high school classes without being about to see clearly.
Hear Yash Gupta talk about how his nonprofit is attracting volunteers. (Click image to watch video.)
Upon discovering that tens of millions of school-age children worldwide need glasses but can’t afford them, Gupta, of Irvine, Calif., decided he wanted to help. He founded Sight Learning, an organization that has collected and distributed more than $900,000 worth of used eyeglasses to students in the U.S., India, Mexico, Haiti, Honduras and other countries.
Sight Learning has also sponsored or partnered with other organizations to offer eye clinics – where students receive examinations and free eyeglasses – in four countries. Gupta, now 18 and a high school senior, has found time to personally participate in three such clinics, including one in New Delhi, India.
“Back in 2010, it occurred to me that most people don’t do anything with their old glasses,” says Gupta. “I searched through my own house and found 10 pairs. I realized these could help 10 kids who have trouble seeing and learning, and that was how I came up with the idea for Sight Learning.”
Yash Gupta, in front of his high school, shows some of the donated eyeglasses he has collected.With help from his father, Gupta set up the organization and made publicity materials and a website. Then he approached a local optometrist, who agreed to partner with him and put out a drop box where patients could donate their used eyeglasses.
Through that first contact, Gupta quickly collected 150 pairs of glasses and gave them to a partner organization for distribution.
“I knew then we could make a real difference,” says Gupta. “If I could find 10 pairs of glasses at home, and an eye doctor could give me 150 in a month, I knew we could build and grow and reach thousands of students in need.”
Gupta estimates that about 70 people in Irvine, including family, friends and optometrists, have contributed volunteer time to Sight Learning.
Having surpassed his goal of collecting and distributing $750,000 worth in used glasses, he now aims to pass $1 million by next month. Gupta, who wants to pursue a career in law, plans to continue his work with Sight Learning while he is in college.
“Sight Learning is constantly rewarding to me,” says Gupta. “The total number of people who need glasses and can’t afford them, in the U.S. and other countries, is around 300 million. Many organizations are helping, and our specialty is trying to help students. At our eye clinics, I’ve had the chance to watch kids put on prescription glasses for the first time. Words can’t describe that experience.”
Jill Kirkwood came to Safe Haven Ministries looking to get involved in any way she could to help end domestic abuse. After working in the childcare program, her organizational skills became apparent and she was promoted to in-service coordinator, recruiting area professionals to lend their services and expertise to teach workshops to the shelter’s clients. Through her programming, clients have learned self-defense, financial literacy, yoga and self-care, resume writing, cooking and received evenings of pampering spa services. By holistically approaching the needs of abused women, she has helped build their confidence and create hope, trust, healing and independence.
Jimmy Willerton, a 14-year-old Eagle Scout, saw first-hand the destruction of a natural disaster on May 22, 2011, when an F5 tornado destroyed his hometown of Joplin, Mo. He also witnessed an outpouring of love as thousands of volunteers immediately came to help rebuild. His Stars of HOPE project paid forward the love shown to Joplin.
Jimmy gathered 100 Stars of HOPE from his hometown to Minot, N.D., to help rebuild from devastating floods. He and his volunteers worked nearly 135 hours to cut out, base-coat and paint messages of hope on stars that would eventually be posted in the flood zone of Minot. His volunteers ranged from a 6-month-old baby to his 90-year-old great-grandmother; four generations of his family assisted with the project.
