In 1997, a group of young screenwriters learned that Los Angeles public schools were cutting creative arts programs from the budget. Knowing the value arts-education held in their own lives, they created a volunteer-based creative arts program they could take directly into public schools at no cost to the school. Today, the foundation serves students in elementary, middle, and high school, and in a foster care center. It also runs summer camps, workshops, and other special programming around Los Angeles.

The Young Storytellers Foundation develops literacy through the art of storytelling. Using group exercises and one-on-one mentoring, they provide under-served children in the public school system an opportunity to write stories and see them brought to life through performance. Their mission is to inspire children to discover the power of their own voice.

Each year, the Young Storytellers Foundation provides programming to approximately 700 students in the greater Los Angeles area. Nearly 4,000 students attended the public performances of the work written by these talented children. 100% of students in our programs complete a finished script and see it performed.

For more information, visit www.youngstorytellers.com.

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Small Charity Week celebrates and raises awareness of the essential work of the UK’s small charity sector who make an invaluable contribution to the lives of millions of individuals, communities and causes across the UK and the rest of the world.

Small Charity Week is brought to you by the Foundation for Social Improvement (FSI), who with the support of partner organisations ensure the work of small charities is recognised and celebrated.

For more information, visit www.smallcharityweek.com.

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Polio cases have declined rapidly since 1985, but the fight isn’t over. Polio is a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease, and for as little as US$0.60, a child can be protected against the virus for life. If we don’t finish the fight right now, more than 10 million children under the age of five could be paralyzed by polio in the next 40 years. Rotary International raises funds to make sure every child receives access to the polio vaccine.

The fight to end polio is led by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which includes Rotary International, UNICEF, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and governments of the world, with the support of many others around the globe.

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The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) was established in 1996 by the internet industry to provide the UK internet Hotline for the public and IT professionals to report criminal online content in a secure and confidential way.

The IWF works in partnership with the online industry, law enforcement, government, and international partners to minimise the availability of this content, specifically:
child sexual abuse images hosted anywhere in the world, criminally obscene adult content hosted in the UK, non-photographic child sexual abuse images hosted in the UK.

The IWF helps internet service providers and hosting companies to combat the abuse of their networks through our ‘notice and takedown’ service which alerts them to content within our remit so they can remove it from their networks.

They also provide unique data to law enforcement partners in the UK and abroad to assist investigations into the distributors.

As sexually abusive images of children are primarily hosted abroad, the IWF facilitates the industry-led initiative to protect users from inadvertent exposure to this content by blocking access to it through our provision of a dynamic list of child sexual abuse web pages.

By sharing intelligence with police, the IWF aided the identification and rescue of 12 children in the past two years. Less than 1% of child sexual abuse content is hosted in the UK since 2003, down from 18% in 1996, and child sexual abuse content is removed in the UK typically within 60 minutes. Time taken to remove child sexual abuse content hosted outside the UK halved to 10 days in 2011, and 100,000 URLs have been removed for containing criminal content.

For more information, visit www.iwf.org.uk.

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On World Day Against Child Labor, UNICEF shines a spotlight on the shocking extent of the abuse of children who work in hazardous or exploitative conditions.

UNICEF estimates that nearly one in six children aged 5–14 are engaged in child labour in the world. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 7.4 million children in the same age group are domestic workers.

The plight of the domestic worker is the theme of this year’s World Day Against Child Labor, observed 12 June. UNICEF acknowledges that, across the world, millions of children work to help their families, but this work becomes unacceptable when it the children are too young, are abused or exploited – and when they should instead be in school.

Foe more information, please visit http://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_69606.html.

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Photos by www.AnnieWatt.com

On Monday, May 13, the New England Society in the City of New York (NES) honored its long, distinguished history and raised funds to support its philanthropic programs at its 208th Founders’ Day Celebration.

Judith A. Bliss, Stephen Storen, Sara Hunter Hudson and Ron Gold co-chaired the cocktail dance at the Racquet and Tennis Club on Park Avenue. The evening featured music by the Alex Donner Orchestra, and attendees enjoyed a raw bar, carving stations and hors d’oeuvres in between spins on the dance floor.

NES was founded in 1805 when Thomas Jefferson was President of the U.S. and the population of New York was 75,770. The Society held its first official gathering on May 6, 1805, at the City Hotel. Early philanthropic activities varied, such as distributing firewood to needy New England families in New York. Today, the Society’s charitable programs focus on education and historic preservation. The NES Scholarship Program helps to fund New York City students at New England colleges and universities. The Central Park Monument Fund helps to preserve the Park’s historic statues and monuments, including the bronze sculpture of The Pilgrim located at East 72nd Street, which NES commissioned and donated in 1885.

Many prominent New Yorkers served as President of NES, from William Evarts (founder and president of the New York Bar Association) and JP Morgan (financier, art collector and philanthropist) to Seth Low (Mayor of New York and president of Columbia University). In addition to raising funds for its charitable programs, Founders’ Day also celebrates these early leaders. For more information about NES and its distinguished history of helping those in need, visit http://www.nesnyc.org.

DoGoodBuyUs believes consumerism can change the world. So, they created the largest marketplace of charity-made products. Now anyone can “do good” just by buying beautiful, often handmade items that support the worthiest causes. From tea to t-shirts, from rain boots to coffee, from jewelry to soaps, the list of amazing products goes on.

Even better, with each purchase, 50%+ proceeds are dedicated to fighting poverty, hunger, disease, environmental degradation and other life-threatening ills around the globe.

For more information, visit www.dogoodbuy.us.

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Stand Up To Cancer and the Prostate Cancer Foundation bring together music icon Quincy Jones and his daughter, actress Rashida Jones, to raise awareness about the importance of men speaking with their doctors about prostate cancer.

Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) is a groundbreaking initiative created to accelerate innovative cancer research that will get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives now.

SU2C is bringing together the best and the brightest researchers and encouraging collaboration instead of competition among the entire cancer community. By galvanizing the entertainment industry, SU2C creates awareness and builds broad public support for this effort.

SU2C’s unique funding model, developed with the help of prominent cancer researchers, encourages collaboration and innovation through two new types of scientific grant. Dream Team grants are awarded to multi-institutional groups of scientists who work collaboratively, rather than competitively, to develop new treatments quickly in order to save lives now. Innovative Research Grants support groundbreaking cancer research projects that are high-risk but could also be high-impact, and have the potential to significantly affect patient care.

For more information, visit www.standup2cancer.org.

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Operation Homefront (OH) provides emergency financial and other assistance to the families of service members and wounded warriors.

In 2012, OH met 151,150 needs for military families, including active duty, Guard and Reserve members from all branches of service. Since its inception, Operation Homefront has provided more than $128 million of funding to programs to benefit military families. Moreover, it has served more than 4,200 wounded warriors and their families.

Operation Homefront provides direct services to alleviate a military family’s or individual’s actual/complete emergency financial burden, as well as counseling and/or recovery support. Emergency financial assistance is in the form of checks paid directly to mortgage lenders, auto mechanics, contractors, hospitals, doctors, dentists and other providers. Other emergency funding assistance, which an applicant receives within 24 to 72 hours, includes the following:
Financial assistance
Emergency food
Emergency home repairs
Critical baby items: formula, food and diapers
Home and appliance repair
Furniture and household items
Local moving assistance
Community events
Wounded Warrior Transitional Family Housing

For more information, visit www.operationhomefront.net.

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Check out the results here! http://blog.charitynavigator.org/2013/06/how-does-your-citys-charities-stack-up.html

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