California Non-Profit Brings the Arts to Children in Treatment

Children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases miss out on a lot of things. They have to spend most or all of their time in the hospital, they are unable to interact with other kids, and their participation in extracurricular activities is very limited. Discovery Arts, a non-profit organization based in Orange, California, is changing that by bringing the arts to children in hospitals.

The charity's “Arts Adventures” program lets kids in treatment experience being kids again through music, dance, theater, and art. These services are provided at no cost to the hospitals and patients. 

Every year, Discovery Arts touches the lives of more than 3,500 children and their families. At present, it operates its programs at various health care institutions, including St. John's Children's Hospital, Fountain Valley Regional Medical Center, and the Jonathan Jaques Children's Cancer Center.

Discovery Arts is also currently offering special package tickets to the June 22, 2012 showing of Peter Pan at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. The play stars actress and Discovery Arts spokesperson Cathy Rigby. Proceeds will benefit the charity.

Giving China's Orphans the Love They Deserve

In 1997, Jenny and Richard Bowen adopted their daughter, Maya, from a welfare institution in Guangzhou, China. The Bowens quickly learned that Maya was emotionally repressed due to her previous environment. However, after a year of receiving constant love and attention from her new family, Maya came out of her hiding place and transformed into a happy, healthy tot.

The Bowens saw how easy it was to make a difference in a child's life and thought of all the other orphans in China who were waiting for loving homes. In 1998, along with a small group of adoptive families, Jenny started the Halfthe Sky Foundation to provide the nurturing affection that so many abandoned Chinese children were missing.

Today, Half the Sky has reached the majority of provinces in China, from Hunan to Tianjin to Shanghai to Beijing. The organization's programs are based on the Western Reggio Emilia approach and focus on providing family-like care to orphaned children of all ages and abilities. Food and shelter are simply not enough, as kids who do not experience love will often fail to develop normally. Half the Sky exists to ensure that every boy and girl knows that they have somebody who cares for them.

So far, Half the Sky has trained over 8,700 caregivers and transformed the lives of nearly 64,000 children. The Infant Nurture Program trains nannies to act as parents and form emotional bonds with their charges, since these bonds play a key role in proper brain development. The Preschool Program prepares young children for school, while the Youth Services Program guides older children via mentorships, sponsorships, and vocational training.

Half the Sky has also established the Family Village Program to provide permanent homes and families for children who are unlikely to be adopted due to physical and developmental difficulties. In 2009, the charity set up China Care Home in Beijing, where specialized medical treatments are given to abandoned infants and toddlers from all over China.

David Jorgensen Shares His Success at Katun Corporation

The Enron scandal and the mortgage meltdown taught us all enough about corporate greed to last a lifetime. But as they say, every pancake has two sides. What about business wealth that finds its way to those in need and to organizations that strive to make the world a better place? David Jorgensen made his fortune co-founding and building Katun Corporation. The business offers aftermarket office-imaging parts and supplies in the United States and Europe. With his partner, David Jorgensen built Katun from a startup to a thriving business with annual sales of $350 million, selling to private-equity investors in 2002.

Perhaps because he grew up in modest circumstances, Mr. Jorgensen felt a responsibility to use his wealth to make a difference. Holding Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in engineering, earning an M.B.A. from the University of Washington, and completing coursework for a Ph.D., he clearly values education. He also appreciates the contribution of culture to a society and believes in a free market and critical thinking. Once he retired, the entrepreneur created the David and Annette Jorgensen Foundation to support those and other causes. The foundation has donated to schools, the Wikimedia Foundation, the Matrix Parent Network and Resource Center, several Bay Area museums, and medical research at the University of California, San Francisco.

In efforts to ensure a free market and society in which the populace analyzes information before accepting it as fact, David and Annette Jorgensen’s foundation supports think tanks and other organizations promoting a free society, including the David Horowitz Freedom Center, the Institute for Justice, the Center for Independent Thought, and the Cato Institute. The President of his own foundation, David Jorgensen also serves as Vice Chairman of the Free to Choose Network, which espouses his philosophy on a free market and an informed public.

Paper Beads Give Hope to Women in Uganda

During a trip to Uganda, Torkin Wakefield, Ginny Jordan, and Devin Hibbard met Millie, a local woman who was rolling paper beads near her home. Though the beads were beautiful, there was no market for them, so instead Millie earned her living by hand-crushing stones in a rock quarry for one dollar a day. Wakefield, Jordan, and Hibbard bought some of the beads and returned home to the US, where friends admired Millie's creations. The three realized that there might be a market for paper bead jewelry after all, and in September 2004, they launched BeadforLife to help Millie and other Ugandan women build a better life for themselves and their families.

Since its founding, BeadforLife has trained more than 850 people to make beads and earn a steady income. The organization has also inspired a cottage industry in Kampala, Uganda, where paper beads are now widespread. Prior to BeadforLife's establishment, there was not a single local vendor selling paper beads in the city.

In 2010, BeadforLife introduced its second income generating program, the Shea Project. Over 700 women in Northern Uganda gather and process shea nuts to make beauty products, which are sold on the BeadforLife website alongside the handcrafted paper bead jewelry.

With a belief in a holistic approach to eradicating poverty, BeadforLife runs four community programs that focus on entrepreneurial development, vocational training, affordable housing, and health care. Furthermore, BeadforLife supports other causes by providing grants to like-minded non-profit groups. In the past, it has given scholarships to schools in Mbale, Uganda through Educate!; purchased supplies for programs run by One School at a Time; and funded flood relief through the Sungi Development Foundation in Pakistan.

BeadforLife also follows an environmental policy and has launched initiatives to reduce its carbon emissions, waste, and consumption of energy and materials.

Teens Learn Life Lessons in the Wilderness With Colorado Charity

Big City Mountaineers is a Denver, Colorado-based charity that teaches underprivileged teens critical life skills through one-day or weeklong programs. Important lessons such as planning and decision making, effective communication, and peaceful conflict resolution are taught in the world's largest classroom – nature. 

Serving urban youth from mostly impoverished households, Big City Mountaineers offers weeklong wilderness trips where teens experience a development program under the guidance of volunteer mentors. With nearly 1,000 participants every year, Big City Mountaineers boasts of a proven track record of helping young people stay in school and quit drug use. In addition to gaining outdoor skills, teens develop a sense of responsibility, self-esteem, and resiliency.

Big City Mountaineers also organizes the Summit for Someone event to raise money for its young beneficiaries. The annual fundraiser invites climbers to take on North America's most challenging peaks, including Mt. Rainier, Mt. Hood, and Gannett Peak. In 2011, Summit for Someone climbers helped provide 37 weeklong outdoor expeditions in Colorado, California, the Pacific Northwest, and the Boundary Waters.

Steven Pinkert, Signum U.S. Healthcare, and Technology for Charity

As Signum U.S. Healthcare, Inc.’s Chairman of the Board, Steven Pinkert applies his professional background in medicine to promote the company’s latest technology venture, a highly advanced non-surgical instrument called the CyberKnife. An image guidance system that allows surgeons to target and access lesions and tumors that would otherwise qualify as inoperable, the CyberKnife employs a complex integration of computer modules, robotic parts, and directed beams of radiation to locate and destroy potentially life-threatening foreign masses in virtually every area of the body. Delivering a concentrated dose of radiation in a controlled and cumulative fashion, the CyberKnife quickly breaks down the integrity of cancer cell clusters without harming the surrounding healthy tissue. Put through a rigorous development testing process to ensure complete efficacy, the CyberKnife boasts distinction as a significantly lower risk alternative to traditional open surgical methods.   

The image guidance software built into the CyberKnife system was specifically crafted to account for a patient’s natural physical movements. Due to this innovative design, people who undergo a CyberKnife treatment can breathe normally during a procedure, a notable benefit considering that surgeons must account for even the smallest deviations in accuracy. Unlike other radiosurgical implements that utilize unyielding head-frames screwed into the skull cavity to inhibit physical action, the CyberKnife relies on a sophisticated digital camera and an attached robotic arm that rotates in minute increments to lock on a tumor with impressive accuracy.  

Before Signum U.S. Healthcare, Inc., introduced the CyberKnife, physicians practicing radiosurgery were somewhat limited regarding the reach and range of their surgical tools. In the past, most radiosurgical systems could only gain access to tumors in the cranial region. With nearly unlimited capabilities, the CyberKnife has been used to combat cancerous lesions in the brain, spinal column, lungs, liver, prostate, pancreas, and kidneys. Outfitted with a compact linear accelerator (LINAC) crafted specifically for soft tissue cancer treatments, the CyberKnife, boasts distinction as one of the most important recent advancements in the field of non-invasive surgery.     

UK Charity and Redheaded Celebrities Hold Online Auction for Orangutans

The Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS), a UK-based charity focused on protecting the endangered Sumatran orangutans, recently launched the Jungle VIP Auction to raise money for the cause. The auction, which runs from March 1-11, features items donated by famous redheads Nicola Roberts, Tim Minchin, Chris Evans, Nicole Kidman, Geri Halliwell, and others. The celebrity items being auctioned include a 12” single and artwork signed by Radiohead, dinner and overnight stay for two at Chris Evans's pub The Mulberry Inn, and a Moulin Rouge poster autographed by Nicole Kidman.

Anyone who wishes to help can also do so by auctioning their own items, making a donation, or purchasing the official 96.4% Orangutan T-shirt.

“Any small thing you can do, any small gesture, will make a difference,” says Nicola Roberts. “And if lots of people get involved that will make a huge difference – so talk about the Jungle VIP Auction, get your friends involved!”

Orangutans, which share 96.4% of our DNA, once lived throughout the forests of Asia. Now they can only be found on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, and Sumatran orangutans are in danger of becoming the first great ape species to become extinct due to habitat loss and the illegal pet trade.

Called “orang hutan” (literally “person of the forest”) by the indigenous peoples of Malaysia and Indonesia, orangutans are vital to forest regeneration through the fruits and seeds they consume. If these gentle and intelligent animals disappear, thousands of plant and animal species within their ecosystem may be lost as well.

SOS, which was founded by Lucy Wisdom in 1997, works for a brighter future for orangutans by:

• Increasing awareness about the importance of protecting our ape cousins and their homes
• Supporting grassroots projects such as the Human-Orangutan Conflict Response Unit (HOCRU) and the restoration of Gunung Leuser National Park
• Starting campaigns on issues that pose a threat to the survival of orangutans in the wild

Online Project Gives Hope to LGBT Community

In September of 2010, author and columnist Dan Savage and his partner Terry Miller uploaded a video to YouTube to inspire and support LGBT youth who were experiencing bullying and harassment. Alarmed at the number of students committing suicide after getting tortured in school, the couple wanted to let young people know that they were not alone and that their lives will eventually get better.

The It Gets Better Project has since turned into an international movement, with over 300,000 user-created videos that have been viewed by millions. In addition to ordinary people, celebrities, politicians, organizations, and well-known personalities have submitted videos to the project. Famous supporters include President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Ellen DeGeneres, Adam Lambert, Tim Gunn, Suze Orman, Sarah Silverman, and many more.

The It Gets Better Project serves as a reminder to LGBT teens that their lives can be happy and wonderful, but they just have to tough it out in the meantime.

As Savage said in the video that started it all, “However bad it is now, it gets better.”