Category Archives: Charity of the Month

Charities of the Month: Holiday Edition!

23 Tuesday Nov 2010

Posted by in charity, Charity of the Month

≈ 2 Comments


Open, open, open. Do you guys remember that Mervyn’s commercial? I feel like it’s one of those commercials I’ll never forget. What bring’s me to this memory is that this Friday, hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. will be waiting outside of stores well before midnight, in an effort to get the greatest shopping deals for their Christmas shopping.
So here’s an idea: sleep in on Friday, get over your food comma, and do your shopping online while supporting some great causes. Below are a few of the amazing items you can purchase for friends and family, although you shouldn’t limit yourself to these. If you have a son or daughter who is into environmental conservation, find an organization that focuses on that, and see what gift catalog they have to offer!
1) Support for International Change: I met a volunteer for SIC while working at the Arcade Fire show for Partners in Health. Looks like a cool organization, and I’m hoping I can work for them in the future. In the meantime, check out their cool handbags! I left the screen open to this one day in the hopes that Jeff would catch my drift…I guess it wasn’t so subtle because he texted me and asked: “is this what you want for Christmas?” Yep :) They’ve got all sorts of styles, so be sure to check them out here.

2) Common Hope: the Common Hope gift catalogue is not actually shopping for those you know, but it still gives you a cool opportunity to buy some awesome gifts for COMPLETE STRANGERS (possibly in the name of someone you think would enjoy the honor), and what could be more rewarding?! haha. Check it out here.
3) Invisible Children: Originally, the invisible children website catalogue was pretty limited, but in checking it out for this blog, it seems that they’ve expanded their offerings quite a bit, which is awesome news for all you shoppers! They have both a Christmas catalogue and a general catalogue. I recommend going straight to the “all” catalogue so you can see everything they offer. My favorites are the bracelets with the DVD stories, and, again, not necessarily something you give to someone (although you could donate it on their behalf), but how cool is it knowing you can send someone to school for $35?!
4) Partners in Health: I’ve talked about PIH before, they’re the organization I volunteered for at the Arcade Fire Show. They’re doing some amazing things, not only in Haiti, but in developing countries around the world. Your $30 donation in exchange for this calendar will go to fund projects in Haiti, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Lesotho, Malawi, Mexico, Guatemala, Kazakhstan, and the US. My one complaint is that they don’t show you a preview of the pictures in the calendar, but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume they are awesome pictures from the amazing projects PIH is working on in each of it’s locations.
Do you know of an organization with a gift catalogue? I’m always interested in learning about new organizations to feature on this blog, so please feel free to bring them to my attention!

Please, I will beg if necessary, check out these organizations and give an honest consideration to the thought of giving some of these as gifts to your friends or family.

Happy shopping!

October Charity of the Month: Corazon!

25 Monday Oct 2010

Posted by in charity, Charity of the Month

≈ 1 Comment

Tired. I was tired. It was 4:30 a.m., and I had already woken up in time to make coffee, make a couple sandwich’s, pack up my bright red cooler, and load it into my car in time to be at Nate’s house for the rendezvous. Have I mentioned this was on a Saturday?

Regardless of how tired I was when I started the day, or how extremely-beyond-exhausted I was when I finally got back home around 11pm, my trip to Tijuana (“TJ”) with Corazon was definitely worth it. Corazon was started 30 years ago, and their concept could not be more…well….obvious! What they offer is an “integrated program of community building, instruction, construction and repair projects, scholarships, and emergency and long-term assistance.” I went to TJ with the organization to help build a house, and found out the organization is actually involved in so much more than just building houses. It just makes so much sense, it’s actually pretty ridiculous. First of all, they don’t just give houses out, people have to earn them through a point system, wherein they earn points by performing community service projects, such as providing child care for neighborhood kids in the mornings (so their parents can go to work), helping in the afternoons and weekends with the tutoring center, or helping to lay concrete or roofing on a neighbors house. Second, their approach is wholistic. So it’s not just about building a house and letting them fend for themselves: it’s also about providing an education for their children so they have a better future, it’s about educating the parents to help them get ahead, it’s about educating the community. I absolutely love the idea of a whole community taking part in improving not only their own home, but of all their neighbors. IT’S FREAKIN’ BRILLIANT!

Anyhow, below are some pictures from the build I went to this past Saturday, which was an addition to an existing house (8 people living in one room) rather than a whole house build. Please check out Corazon’s site and see how you can be a part of this amazing organization, either financially or by donating your time. Take a day in the next few months, and join us to help a worthy family. If you come on enough projects, you can earn your blue shirt, which I definitely plan on doing!

Walking to our work site:


The house as it stood originally, with the foundation already lead for the addition:

Painting the exterior and interior of the walls:


Putting up the walls:

Marlene, one of the members of the house, working on her painting skills:

And Marlon, her twin brother, working on his carpentry skills:

Working on the roof:

Photo opportunity of our finished product along with the sponsors and all the family members:

TJ at night:


Wanna join us next time? Check it out.

Charity of the Month: Locks of Love

01 Friday Oct 2010

Posted by in charity, Charity of the Month

≈ 2 Comments

Wow, I really thought I had already submitted my charity for September. Glad I checked today, I still have a few hours (on the West Coast, at least)!

I’m sure most of you know about this organization, but I’m going for it anyway. Locks of Love creates wigs for children. I always thought it was wigs for kids with cancer, but the focus of the organization is actually for children suffering from alopecia, or hair loss. Either way, hair donations go towards providing free or low cost wigs for children, who would otherwise have to suffer through the embarrassment of being bald. It’s hard enough for adults to deal with that, but imagine children going to school and the endless teasing I’m sure they have to endure.
I first donated my hair about 3 years ago, and I’ve been wanting to cut again for quite some time now, but I was waiting to find someone I felt comfortable with, and make sure I had the funds to get it cut. Thankfully, I found Amy, who did an amazing job.
My hair is now waiting patiently in a nice plastic bag, just waiting to be shipped out to make someone happy (I hope…).

If you’ve got it in you, consider letting your hair grow out long enough to donate it, you won’t regret it. I mean, even if you don’t find someone as amazing as Amy…it grows back! (sorry, couldn’t help it…)

Charity of the Month: Online Volunteering

31 Tuesday Aug 2010

Posted by in charity, Charity of the Month

≈ Leave a comment

And so I come to you, dear readers, not only greatly delayed in my monthly entry, but also with another exception to our definition of “charity of the month.” This organization isn’t really a charity, per se, but I think it’s a great way to put your skills and knowledge to use towards charities. And for people like me, it’s a great way to get experience in something I’m interested in, without having to move to DC or NYC.

What is this organization I speak of, you say? Well, it’s actually part of the United Nations, a program dedicated to mobilizing volunteers for development: OnlineVolunteering.org. And I quote: “the…service connects volunteers with organizations working for sustainable human development.”

The greatest thing about this org is that you can volunteer from the comfort of your own home. You don’t have to wake up at 8am on a Saturday, you don’t have to make a monetary donation from that non existent savings account. You just volunteer your time, whenever that may be, towards something you’re good at. Or something you want to get good at.

You can find a volunteer area by any one of three ways:

1) The kind of work you want to do:
  • Research
  • Writing and editing
  • Translation
  • IT development
  • Project development and management
  • Design
  • Consulting
  • Coordination and facilitation
  • Training and coaching


2) The specific development topic you want to work on
  • Education
  • Youth
  • Development advocacy and strategies
  • Integration of marginalized groups
  • Governance and human rights
  • Health
  • Culture
  • Income generation and employment
  • Environment
  • Food and agriculture
  • Volunteerism
  • Gender


3) The geographic region you’re interested in serving:
  • Global
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Eastern Europe, CIS
Pretty cool, huh? I urge you to check out their user friendly website, and see if there are any online volunteer opportunities you find interesting. You may not only learn something new and interesting, but you’d also be helping a worthy organization or charity in achieving their development goals. Personally, I’m really excited to find some time to dedicate to some online volunteer work.

Charity of the Month: Heifer International

04 Friday Jun 2010

Posted by in charity, Charity of the Month

≈ Leave a comment

A couple days ago I realized that a new month was upon me, and you know what this means: a new opportunity to highlight an amazing organization! I was running low on organizations that I was personally aware of, and although I could have done a google search to research organizations around the world, I decided to reach out to my facebook community to see what suggestions they had. I was so happy to get suggestions from several people, and thanks to them I have found some really cool organizations that I will be highlighting over the next few months.
For this month I have decided to go with Heifer International, an organization suggested by Jessica. A little bit about her: our first year in college we walked down the streets of Del Playa in Santa Barbara, arms linked, laughing about how alike we were and how we should have been twins, except for the small fact that she’s asian and I’m guatemalan. No biggie :) Turns out she’s even more awesome than I thought: she is personally involved in several charities, Heifer being one of them.
Have you ever thought about buying a heifer for a family who is starving?

How about a llama for a poor farmer in Peru?

Maybe you’ve thought about buying a flock of chicks to donate to a family. Maybe not, huh? Well now you can. Turns out the mission of Heifer is not just to give people food, but to make them self sufficient by giving them the tools needed to help themselves. You give them something they can use to live off of for years to come, to create income and food for their home, to feed their malnourished children. And you can help.
Through Heifer, you can purchase one of these meaningful gifts, or you can purchase a “share” of it if you can’t afford the whole thing on your own. How cool is that??
It gets better. If you want to go a step further, you can create your own Heifer Team to fundraise money. The website gives you all sorts of ideas on how you can raise money for the organization, so you are not going into this bling. You can also join an existing team if you do not want to start one on your own.
You can also donate to a project instead of purchasing an individual gift. Heifer is involved in projects all over the world, so I won’t list them all here, but I encourage you to check out their page and see if there is any specific project that may be dear to your heart, and worth a donation.
I also encourage you to check out their success stories so you can see exactly how this organization is making a difference in people’s lives.
Thank you Jessica for letting me know about this great organization. I definitely look forward to contributing to it in the near future.

Charity of the Month: Hands On Disaster Response

15 Saturday May 2010

Posted by in Charity of the Month

≈ Leave a comment

My regular readers were probably expecting this months pick, with “Haiti this” and “Haiti that” (I promise I’ll start branching out again soon!), but yes, for this month’s Charity of the Month, I have decided to highlight a little bit about the organization that I went to Haiti with.


Who They Are:

HODR is a US based non profit which began unofficially in 2004, and was officially established in 2006 as a direct response to the need for help in devastated areas. Since then, HODR has helped disaster areas recover in Thailand, Indonesia, Haiti, many locations across the United States, and most recently Haiti, to name a few. I can personally speak to the amazingness of the people that you will find volunteering for this organization. I expected my experience to be rewarding because of the work we were doing, but I never expected to meet so many amazing people, all with one common purpose.

What They Do:

HODR basically gathers volunteers that are willing to do some hard physical labor for free, in areas that have been severally affected by natural disasters. They take volunteers, and through these volunteers are able to provide direct assistance to disaster afflicted areas. In Haiti, for example, the biggest projects are rubble removal: clearing large mounds of rubble off of slabs of land, so the owners of the land can move their tent onto their own land rather than on the street, and eventually start to rebuild their home. Aside from rubble removal, however, HODR is performing a huge variety of projects, including mapping out the water system for the town of Leogane, building temporary school shelters so children can return to classes (this includes making and painting the furniture that goes into these schools), helping setting up tents for displaced people, working on a research project which details how the mayor’s office functions and how it can function better, and most recently: trying to create a physical location where NGO’s can coordinate with each other.
(Completed rubble site at Boisonnier)

How you can get involved:

There are so many ways you can help. The most obvious way is by donating money to the organization. Your donation can go a long way. If I’m not mistaken, most of the funds going to the Haiti relief fund are going towards buying materials to build temporary school shelters for children. How great is it to know that your money is allowing children to move on with their lives, to keep being a child for just a little bit longer, to attain an education that will help them have a brighter future? Pretty great :)

Another way to donate is by attending Campout for the Cause II. Scott, one of the volunteers who was down in Haiti while I was there, is one of the organizers of this event, and it sounds pretty amazing. It’s a weekend of camping, listening to music, hanging out, and what you pay goes towards several organizations, including HODR. Check out more information here.

Finally, and my personal favorite, is by actually going to Haiti and volunteering your time. I know it sounds impossible to do, we all have responsibilities: bills to pay, mouths to feed, TPS reports to turn in, but believe me, it will be totally worth it to leave it all behind, even if just for ten days (although I would recommend at least two weeks!). I won’t lie to you and tell you it’s a five star hotel; the living conditions are difficult, but you come home to your bunk at the end of the day, and you’re happy with the work you’ve done. I haven’t had greater personal satisfaction than what I experienced while I was down there. Project Leogane was recently extended up until January, 2011, due to the need for help in the community, so you have plenty of time to get your affairs in order and put yourself to work!















(Loading up for work, and sunrise on the rooftop)

Charity of the Month: The List Project

11 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in charity, Charity of the Month

≈ Leave a comment

I found out about The List Project (TLP) a couple years ago while working on a research paper about immigration issues involving Iraqi citizens. My paper discussed how there were Iraqi citizens who were putting their lives on the line in order to work for the US (as translators, etc.), and who later sought asylum because their lives were being threatened by their relationship with the US.


TLP was created to address this issue, and to create a support network for those Iraqi’s who make it to the United States: to help them adjust, find a job, etc. I’m actually embarrassed to admit I have not been as involved with this organization as I would like. I hope that sometime in the near future I’ll be able to actually put some real work towards this organization. In the meantime, I hope you guys will check out their website. They need your help, not just financially, but your time, your connections, your expertise, etc. Check ‘em out!

Charity of the Month: charity:water

05 Friday Mar 2010

Posted by in Charity of the Month

≈ 1 Comment

A friend of mine celebrated his 27th birthday this year in one of the most amazing ways I can imagine. Instead of asking for gifts, he asked all of his friends and family to donate $27 (his age) towards building a water well in Africa. As of today, he has raised $2390! Amazing!


How did he do it? Through a nonprofit called charity:water. Their goal is simple: to provide clean water to people around the world. It’s something most of us take for granted, since it’s something we enjoy without even thinking about. But for millions of people, clean water is a luxury they only can’t afford, but isn’t even within their reach. The goal of charity:water is to build water projects in communities, clinics and schools, as well as clean sanitation facilities.

The cool thing about charity:water is that it allows YOU to be personally responsible for bringing clean water to a village. How amazing of a feeling would that be?! Instead of going with the usual wedding registry, or asking people for birthday gifts, you can build a well in Africa! It may sound crazy, but Javier is living proof of the amount of money you can raise by just spreading the word. I encourage you all to look into the organization and consider following in Javier’s footsteps for your next big milestone in life!

Charity of the Month: Central Asia Institute

13 Saturday Feb 2010

Posted by in Charity of the Month

≈ Leave a comment

Many of you may have heard of a bestselling book a few years ago, “Three Cups of Tea.” I bought it online after seeing a random add for it in the online version of the LA Times. It seemed like something I would like. I’ll admit that the first few chapters were a little tough to get through, but once I got passionate about what this one man was trying to do, it was difficult to stop turning the pages to see if he was able to accomplish it! His idea was that what was needed in the Middle East was education, a lot of education. Greg’s main beneficiaries were girls who had so far been forbidden to go to school. Greg’s goal was to raise money to build schools for these girls, in remote villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan. These projects are all accomplished with the help of local community members: money is raised, but labor is provided by the parents of the children who will one day attend the school.


His book talks about the difficulty he had in raising the initial funds for his project and how it took off. This is where the Central Asia Institute (“CAI”) comes in. It’s a 501(c) nonprofit created by Greg to fundraise money to continue building schools in the Middle East. Since it’s inception, CAI has expanded its programs to include programs for women, to help them make money to support their families, and also sustainability for many of these villages who have never had running water, etc.

I encourage everyone to check out CAI’s website and to read the book. I encourage all teachers out there to look at the Pennies for Peace program, where school children can have a direct impact in fundraising and building schools for less fortunate children across the world.


Please let me know if you have any organizations in mind for next month’s Charity of the Month!

Charity of the Month: Invisible Children

18 Monday Jan 2010

Posted by in Charity of the Month

≈ Leave a comment


Did you know that up to 66,000 children were abducted in Uganda over 2 decades of conflict? The statistics of “children soldiers” around the world are mind numbing:

  • 2 million children killed in combat
  • Over 1 million orphaned
  • Over 6 million seriously injured or permanently disabled
  • Over 10 million left with serious pyschological trauma.
The conflict in Uganda stems from confrontation between the government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Arms (“LRA”). There has been progress through peace talks, but the LRA has failed to enter into any formal and lasting peace agreement. Meanwhile, the people of Uganda are still struggling to make ends meet, after they were displaced and found far away from their homes and livelihood. 1.8 million people were displaced, and about 1 million of those remain in Internally Displaced Persons (“IDP”) camps. These camps are not your idea of fun. They are overcrowded, dirty, and dangerous.
With these statistics in mind, we turn to our charity of the month: Invisible Children. I first became aware of them through a fellow lawstudent, Darrell. He was promoting an Invisible Children movie screening that was being hosted at our school. I remember going to the movie screening with Jeff. And I remember crying as we walked back to our car. I felt so helpless. I still don’t understand how there are situations around the world, like these children in Uganda, and the world doesn’t stop it. Sometimes I wonder: if more people cared, and if more people were AWARE, would that make a difference? I’d like to think that the answer is yes. Sorry…I’ll stop ranting and get back to Invisible Children :)
The organization focuses on making documentaries, but it goes beyond that: they raise money to build schools and provide scholarships for Ugandan children, to offer them hope for the future. I hope you guys check out their website. You can support Invisible Children by buying one of their cool documentaries and bracelets, and by spreading the word!
Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started