Australian K.I.D.S. Foundation: Port To Port Challenge

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In order to raise money for K.I.D.S., the Australian K.I.D.S. Foundation is organizing the Port to Port 1200 kilometer challenge. The participants will be riding 1200 kilometers (about 720) miles in 7 days. The cyclists will depart from Port Melbourne on Friday, 22nd April, 2011, and will arrive in Port Macquarie in time for the 2011 Australian IronMan Challenge.

Interestingly, some of athletes who participate in Port to Port will complete their journeys by participating in the Australian IronMan event on Sunday, 1st May.

In order to sign up participants must pay $500 and raise donations of $5,000 for K.I.D.S. Only 30 riders are permitted and if each one brings in $5,500 that makes $165,000 to help kids.

The Australian K.I.D.S. Foundation

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The Australian K.I.D.S. Foundation is dedicated to lowering the amount of childhood injury and death. Australian K.I.D.S. spreading injury prevention education and provides programs in pre-schools, elementary and high schools. They run interactive education programs and give resources to 7, 500 schools.

In their recovery program K.I.D.S. helps hundreds of children and their families who have suffered trauma, terrible burns and other injuries that have changed their lives.

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck Feed America

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Matt-Damon-and-Ben-AffleckBen Affleck and Matt Damon and have joined forces with Feeding America to make some strong and moving public service announcements.

Each actor has made public service announcement to alert Americans to how real hunger pain is, and how prevalent.

Ben takes the ‘official’ role and tells us the facts of how frequent hunger is in our country (one out of six people). Matt plays the role of Steve, a man who was once embarrassed to visit his local food bank in order to feed his hungry family.

Kentucky Branch of Feed America receives $100,000 from Wal-Mart

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A corporate giant and a national charity are working together to expand a hunger relief program in thirty Kentucky counties. Wal-Mart Inc. has awarded $100, 000 in grant money to Elizabethtown-based Feeding America Kentucky’s Heartland. Feeding America will increase its BackPack Program and also the number of food items students enrolled in the program receive, according to Gary Miles, Feeding America’s executive director in Kentucky.

The Elizabethtown branch of Feeding America asked for $50,000 in order to add 630 students to the program and another $50,000 to improve the quality of food given out.

The food bags are given out in 30 of the 42 central and western Kentucky counties helped by Feeding America Kentucky’s Heartland. Each bag is packed with approximately 12 items, including cereal, milk, fruit and snacks.

The bags are given out Fridays at the end of school. They are discreetly put into students’ backpacks so that the students do not feel embarrassed in front of their friends.

This program has expanded to approximately 200 schools and serves almost , 5,000 children in the 30-county area. Each bag costs about $2 to prepare.
“Walmart has really stepped up to the plate and helped us big time,” Miles said.

Children In Poverty In U.S. And Other Countries Express Similar Needs

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Children who live in poverty in the United States express similar needs and wishes to poverty stricken children in other parts of the world, according to a survey conducted by ChildFund Alliance.

In developing nations, 57% of 10 to 12-year-olds indicated that education would be their top priority if they were leading their country. In the United States 31% of poverty stricken children said that improving education also was the most important issue. The second most popular choice overall and for U.S. residents (19 %) was providing more food.

The Small Voices, Big Dreams survey polled almost 3,000 children between ages 10-12 in 30 countries throughout the Americas, Africa, and Asia. ChildFund Alliance, an international group of child-oriented organizations, sponsored the survey. The U.S. member of the alliance of ChildFund International.

In developing countries, one third of the children told pollsters that they go to bed hungry at least once a week. A third of the children said that food was the most needed priority. When asked what they would spend a dollar on, 45 percent overall and 55 percent in the U.S said that they would purchase food or water.

Outside the U.S., children spent much more time on household chores or other work. 26% answered that they worked at least half a day every day. In the U.S., only 11 % work half a day or more.

As children do so well, they deliver an honest and clear picture of what it is like to be young and live in poverty said Katherine Calos

AmeriCares Responds With More Support As Cholera rapidly Spreads in Haiti

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Deadly-Cholera-OutbreakAmeriCares, with its crew on the ground providing medical services since cholera struck, is preparing more emergency shipments of medicines to Haiti. These will be sent by both air and water, to fight the deadly disease which is spreading rapidly and has now reached Port-au-Prince, the capital city.

In order to halt the spread of cholera, AmeriCares is also sending a water purification shipment of two million sachets to purify 5.5 million gallons of water. This can provide 20,000 families with safe drinking water for several weeks.

Christoph Gorder, senior vice president of global programs for AmeriCares said “Now that cholera cases are being reported in Port-au-Prince, the outbreak could easily spread to the earthquake survivor camps where more than a million people are still homeless.”  “With little natural immunity to cholera, Haitians have a high risk of serious illness and death.”

American Cancer Society Gives award to Quinnipiac University for the Relay for Life

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The Top 5 Youth Per Capita Award was given to Quinnipiac University at the American Cancer Society’s New England Relay For Life College Summit in Marlborough, Mass.

The Top 5 Youth Per Capita Award was given to Quinnipiac because it was one of the top five schools, with between 5, 000-9,999 students, to get the most contributions for Relay For Life. More than 1,100 Quinnipiac students took part in last years relay, and they brought in over than $95,000. These funds will be use for the American Cancer Society’s programs in education, advocacy, research and service.

Feeding America runs a “Hunger-Free Families” Campaign

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There are many ways to perform good deeds and to keep them giving.  One can pay it forward to others who need help, or return a kindness or Tell 10 People.  Feeding America’s “Hunger-Free Families” campaign seeks to encourage families to reach out and Tell 10 others about families who are living with hunger in their own communities.

Hunger is a daily norm for many Americans — it is found in rural areas, urban areas, and all other regions of America.  There are 17 million families who many times don’t know where they will find their next meal. More than one-third of the households interviewed in the “Feeding America Hunger 2010 survey” said that sometimes they have no food.

“Somewhere in your own community is a parent who willingly sacrifices a meal so that his or her child can have a decent dinner,” said Vicki Escarra, CEO of Feeding America. Feeding America is trying to bring attention to his need and is currently the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization.

“We joined the campaign because we saw that so many families are going hungry, in this day and time, here in America,” said Laila Ali Conway.  Ali and her husband Curtis Conway spent a day at a Foothill Unity Center food pantry, a branch of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. They worked with volunteers, met clients and learned about the battles of people living with hunger.  “They have kids just like we do and they have to worry about putting food on the table,” continued Ali Conway.

As the holiday season approaches, Hunger-Free Families campaign goal is to not only have people TELL 10 about the American hungry. They also want to inspire people to donate or volunteer at their local food bank.  These efforts will help provide many meals to hungry families.

Elected Officials and Enterprise Celebrate the Grand Opening of the Renato Apartments

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Renato ApartmentOn Thursday, November 5, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34) Councilwoman Jan Perry (9th district) and SRO Housing  joined Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise), new residents and neighbors to celebrate the opening of the Renato Apartments located at 531 S. San Julian Street on Skid Row. The Renato Apartments, a $25 million development, will provide 95 low-price studio apartments for extremely low-income residents.

“Enterprise has invested heavily in Skid Row because we believe that it is important to create a community that includes affordable housing and access to needed resources for those who are working to make improvements in their lives,” said Jeff Schaffer, A California impact leader for Enterprise. “We know that a home is the first step to address homelessness, however, enabling supportive services increases the chances that a person will remain housed.”

The Renato Apartments offers permanent-supportive housing to citizens who earn up to 45 percent of the local median income. Sixty apartments are reserved for chronically homeless people and those suffering from mental-illness. To assist residents with needed life-skills, SRO Housing will provide comprehensive social services on the premises. All studio apartments will be supported by the project-based Section 8 rental subsidy. The residents can also get social support, such as drug and alcohol recovery programs and free meals at the nearby James Woods Community Center.

Enterprise provided approx. $11.7 million in Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity earmarked for building costs.

Enterprise and SRO have a strong history of working together to help the Skid Row neighborhood. Over the past ten years, Enterprise has financed more than 1,000 units in nine SRO properties, including the Lyndon Hotel, the James Woods Apartments, the Yankee and the Ford Hotel which are currently under construction.

Cure in The fight against Epilepsy

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Cure, Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy, is very active in promoting research to find cures for epilepsy. In order to fund research cure also does a lot of fund raising.

On Thursday, October 22, Susan Axelrod, the president of Cure, and her husband spoke at the CIA kick-off of its Combined Federal Campaign in Langley, Virginia. They spoke to an auditorium of employees about their daughter Lauren’s struggles with epilepsy, about CURE, and they also showed one of cure Organization’s videos.  The Director, Leon Panetta, spoke from the depths of his heart about the importance of giving charity–both in money, time and effort. Of course, as always, there were people in the audience who had personal connections to epilepsy: it’s a constant reminder of how prevalent this disease is.

Thursday night, Cure had its 3rd annual New York City benefit. It has seen huge growth over the past two years!  Mayor Bloomberg was the keynote speaker, and many friends, supporters, and families helped to doubling the number of guests there, and triple the funds raised!

These are just two of the many fundraising and public relations events that Cure organizes.

Since cure was founded in 1998, it has raised $10 million to fund epilepsy research and other projects dedicated to finding a cure. Cure funds grants to young and established investigators to investigate  new areas and collect the data needed to apply for further funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Since 1998, CURE has awarded funding to more than 85 cutting-edge projects.