Global Grassroots Empowering Women

Global Grassroots is a 501(c)(3) non-profit supporting conscious social change.  The programs are "driven by and for vulnerable women at the grassroots level."

The UN estimates that between 250,000 and 500,000 women were sexually assaulted during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. According to Amnesty International, 67 percent of these women, most left widowed by the conflict, contracted HIV.  Post-conflict, women are often left alone as widows to assume the traditional roles of men in rebuilding their lives, while taking care of their own children and even the orphans of their neighbors. Focused on daily survival, they are frequently unable to attend to their own emotional and physical rehabilitation needs.

Global Grassroots helps women address mind-body trauma healing, social venture development skills, leadership training, personal transformation practices, and initiating their own civil society organizations.  Often primary caregivers, women have the power to impact their children's, neighbors', and ultimately, their communities lives for good.  Global Grassroots provides the platform and tools for women to remake their world.

Helping After Irene

The Red Cross is accepting donations for relief efforts.  Call 1-800-RED CROSS, texting the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation, sending contributions to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013 or donating online. 

To contribute to the Salvation Army's relief efforts, text "STORM" to 80888 to make a one-time $10 donation or contribute online.
Network For Good, an online hub of charities, nonprofits and volunteers, has a list of organizations offering relief.

Operation USA seeks to fill gaps in community health care and social services efforts after disasters. Text "aid" to 50555 or visit the donation page online.


When disaster strikes, Feed the Children rolls out its fleet of semi-tractor trailers stocked with the critical supplies, including diapers, baby products, bottled water, cleanup supplies, snacks to be used in the days and weeks of critical recovery time. To help Feed the Children help those in need, consider making an online donation.

AmeriCares is accepting donations.  The organization specializes in wound care medicines and supplies, water, and other storm-relief items.

The Samaritan's Feet

More than 70,000 Samaritan's Feet volunteers have put 3,000,000 impoverished children in shoes. No small feat!  --Yet, one this nonprofit takes to heart.  Three-hundred million live without any shoes, and foot-borne illnesses kill a million people each year.

A life spent barefoot isn't just limited to undeveloped nations.  Even in the U.S., youngsters go without shoes or have footwear that is too small.  Shoes open up choices to children in ways you may not think about.  They're able to attend school (because with shoes they can walk).  Sports become an option.

Samaritan's Feet operates in 40 nations and provide relief to war-torn and disaster-ridden areas.

Square Foot Gardening to End Hunger

Square Foot Gardening is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) entity with simple solutions to food insecurity.  Its ultimate goal is to end world hunger by reaching out to families and teaching them how to grow their own healthy food.    Families can improve their nutrition intake and benefit from quality time together centered around gardening.  The Square Foot Gardening plan uses less resources and requires very little work yet yields a harvest equal to a single row garden 5x its size.

The organization also teaches educational classes and support local community gardens and NGO projects overseas.  The nonprofit teaches food literacy in schools, donates gardens to many organizations, and helps promote healthy lifestyles.

Warrior 2 Citizen: Transition for Veterans and Families

Warrior 2 Citizen is a nonprofit created by veterans for veterans. The mission focuses on helping soldiers and their families transition from the front lines of war to the home front.  Post-traumatic Stress can lead to social isolation, tear families apart, and drive the veterans who suffer from the symptoms to suicide.  Warrior 2 Citizen knows how entirely preventable the worst situations are.  Social, economic, and emotional troubles can all be addressed and counseled before tragedy ever happens.

Warrior 2 Citizen emphasizes educational training, emotional healing, physical fitness, and building strong family bonds:

• All programs provide the means to transition the veteran and his/her family into civilian environments through sustained education, training, and counseling.
• Ongoing provision of safe time, space, and confidentiality enables the sustained healing and family bonding within a spiritual model (non-denominational) 30 day retreat.
• Build supportive social network, systems, and distributed education and training.
• Mimic the warfighter battlemind with sports activities and use decompression strategies to assist balancing the body, mind and spirit utilizing the benefits of an extreme sports camp platform and natural retreat environment

Learn more or donate by visiting http://www.warrior2citizen.com/.

You Snooze and Charities Win!

The snooze button on your phone alarm could do a lot more good than letting you catch some extra Z-z-z's.  Snooze for iPhone allows you to pledge a 25 cent donation to a nonprofit every time you press for more sleep.

The LetGive company processes the donation at the end of each month, and you have the prerogative of deciding to give more or less.  LetGive is a for-profit venture.  Their mission includes finding easy ways for charities to fundraise with technology.

A Little Girl and Charity Water

Young Rachel Beckwith hoped to raise $300 by her ninth birthday in an effort to help supply clean water to an impoverished African village.  The girl lost her life in a car accident before she reached her goal, but word spread quickly about her birthday wish for charity.  Washington state and then national news organizations picked up the story inspiring tens of thousands of donors to support her cause, Charity Water.

The fundraising campaign on charitywater.org has now surpassed the $1 million mark.  One hundred percent of these donations go directly to providing clean water to those in developing nations.

Free Rice: The Game that Translates to Food for the Hungry

Free Rice is a vocabulary game that allows you to partner with the World Food Programme and its corporate sponsors such as AT&T, Citi, DirecTV, and Volkswagon.  Your mission is to feed the hungry.  The game helps you do something positive in your idle time.

Right now, the crisis in Somalia and the Horn of Africa threatens the lives of 12 million people, and tens of thousands of children have already died of starvation. The United Nations expects the famine emergency to persist for several months and the number of people needing help to go up by 25%.  The World Food Programme is on the front lines in addressing the immediate food security needs of refugees.

In the video below Brian Williams talks to the game's creator and explains more.  You can play Free Rice by visiting the website.

Starlight Children's Foundation

Starlight Children's Foundation has devoted their 30 year history to raising the quality of life of children facing serious diagnoses and devastating injuries.  Their programs center on entertainment, education, and family acitivities all offering coping strategies for the pain, fear, and isolation that often companions prolonged illnesses.  The foundation depends on the expertise of pediatrics, technology, and the arts to lift the lives of sick children and their families--seeing a child through diagnosis through the end of medical treatment.

Programs include:

• Starlight World-Teens connecting with other teens that are at home or in the hospital
• Great Escapes-Families enjoy ball games, cruises, picnics, spa days, and movie premieres
• Mobile Entertainment Centers-hospitalized children get access to DVD players and video game consoles
• PC Pals-laptops with educational software provided to hospitalized children

See more of the programs offered at Starlight (dot) org.  The foundation helped more than 4 million children in 2010.

The Pink Daisy Project

Judy Haley established the Pink Daisy Project as an expression of gratitude to all the people that helped her through her fight against breast cancer.  She recalls meals, gifts, good wishes, phone calls, cleaning services, and encouragement and "the co-workers I barely knew who donated vacation hours and meals."

Haley was barely 40 when she received her diagnosis.  And breast cancer gets a lot of media attention and money for research, but what about tailored assistance to meet the needs of young women often with young children?  Pink Daisy Project rises to the occasion offering:

• Housecleaning
• Groceries and meals
• Assistance with prescription costs
• Other assistance as needed

"I want to help people in a way that's not available elsewhere. To be a friend to those who need one. If I could gather up all the young women facing breast cancer who have no one to lean, on and be their friend, buy their groceries, cook their meals, clean their houses and care for their children, I would."  --Judy Haley

Haley was recently featured as one of the 2011 CNN Heroes for her efforts.

Time is Now to Help: a one man crusade to help the poor

CNN Heroes calls Sal Dimiceli a "Dear Abby" for the poor.  He grew up experiencing bouts of poverty and wondered as a boy why no one would help his mother.  Seeing his own family suffer moved him to promise God that he would help the poor whenever he could. Struggling families, widows, single mothers, children, the elderly, and good people enduring hard times--all are often too proud or too ashamed to reach out and say they need help.  In the beginning, Dimiceli found them.

Eventually he started his own nonprofit to streamline his efforts.  The Time is Now to Help assists people with rent, utilities, food, blankets, and books.  Dimiceli has negotiated lower rents with landlords and stocked the bare cupboards of food pantries.

He generously donates at least 20% of his own income, but in the last decade he has begun to rely more on donations to his nonprofit, which he started in 1989.  He networks with local clubs and businesses to raise awareness about the immediate needs of the impoverished in Southeastern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois.

Action Against Hunger: Focus on the Horn of Africa

Approximately 11.5 million people in the Horn of Africa face massive food shortages, devastating livestock losses, and relentless drought conditions.  Many organizations that specialize in food security have mobilized resources to help deliver food specifically made to rapidly nourish those on the brink of dying.

How do you know which charity will be the most effective with your donation?

Action Against Hunger, highly rated by Charity Navigator, is one of the few NGO's authorized to help.  Their work includes "providing treatment and medical care for acutely malnourished children, general nutritional support for children under five years of age, and emergency access to food, clean water, and improved sanitation for vulnerable populations."