|
The feature below is brought to you by Little Lambs Foundation for Kids, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about Little Lambs Foundation for Kids, please visit their website page: here.  How Little Lambs Sees BeautifulLittle Lambs Foundation for Kids sees beautiful daily by helping children and families who are in desperate need of everyday necessities. Throughout their three main programs, Little Lambs reaches out to low-income families and foster youth to help them during their most difficult times. Little Lambs Foundation for Kids is a 501c(3) nonprofit foundation headquartered in Logan, Utah. Through their Comfort Kit Program, Little Lambs is making a difference in the lives of thousands of children throughout the state of Utah who are transitioning into foster care and emergency shelters. In addition, they also help low-income families with supplemental diapers and baby supplies through their Diaper Bank Program and children in school with clothing, hygiene items, and school supplies. Little Lambs currently provides for over 50 partnering agencies statewide and stocks local emergency safe houses and the Division of Child and Family Services offices with hands-on resources to distribute to children and families in desperate need. The Little Lambs Comfort Kit Program makes sure that infants, children, and teens entering the foster care system receive a hopeful start by giving them new care bags to replace items they were forced to leave behind or never had to begin with. Comfort Kits help children to adapt to their new surroundings at an extremely vulnerable time in their lives. The overall goal of the Little Lambs Comfort Kit Program is to distribute a backpack of necessities to every child being placed into foster care and emergency shelters in our distribution locations. (1) Provide new belongings, comfort and hope to children who must be rescued from abuse, neglect, and abandonment. (2) Address the immediate physical and emotional needs of rescued children and help support the agencies caring for them. (3) Provide a sense of self-worth and self-confidence by giving foster children a backpack of new items that now belong to them and them alone. Little Lambs Diaper Bank exists to fill an unmet critical need for diapers among the most vulnerable in our community. According to the National Diaper Bank Network, 1 in 3 families have to choose between diapers and other basic needs like food. Without an adequate supply of diapers, children can’t attend daycare, making it impossible for parents to work or continue their education. An inadequate amount of diapers forces parents to have to leave their child in a soiled diaper longer, which often leads to diaper rash and can cause staph and urinary tract infections. An insufficient supply of diapers is not only a risk for poor infant and child health, but also for maternal mental health. Every baby deserves to be happy, healthy and dry. Little Lambs Foundation for Kids is dedicated to providing these basic necessities that no child should ever have to go without. Little Lambs prepares to help hundreds of children in the community with clothing, hygiene items, and school supplies every August. With a 25.4% poverty rate in Logan City, it is heartbreaking to see children go to school without these basic necessities. Little Lambs provides school supply kits, pajamas, and family hygiene kits every year for children who are in foster care, emergency shelters, and for low-income families. Little Lambs sees beautiful by helping children with these basic necessities so they can attend school and can focus on learning and growing. Without the basic necessities like clothing, hygiene items, and school supplies children can experience stress, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Instead of being able to focus on school they are faced with a multitude of challenges, including difficulty in school and bullying. Little Lambs sees beautiful in supporting children going to school, making friends, and learning. By having the proper tools to succeed, children can feel a sense of belonging, feel confident and be prepared to learn and succeed. From assembling comfort kits for foster children to distributing diapers and hygiene items, to helping children feel prepared to learn, Little Lambs has an important role in the lives of thousands of children and families. Little Lambs believes with their whole heart that by giving to others in need we can add and see beautiful in the world around us. Written by: Edward ChalfantExecutive Director, Little Lambs Foundation for Kids
0 Comments
The feature below is brought to you by ONE Wellness Project an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about ONE Wellness Project, please visit their website page: here.  Building communities through health & wellness"Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. . ." but who is the beholder? The beholder can be you. The beholder can be them. The beholder can be me. As a child, I can recall various things that have stuck with me ever since I laid eyes on it. Some were and some were not so great. . . But I always wanted to heal the world from those things that may limit the vision of so many individuals. When the idea of a nonprofit 501c3 dropped in my spirit years ago, I thought "naw not me." Fast forward to a few years later and it dropped again, but stronger and with a purpose. At the time we were living in a community that was a sanctuary hub/city for immigrants from other countries and I noticed that the kids from those families had limited access to opportunities outside of school and where we resided. It was at that moment that I decided to follow my heart and begin healing the world. The first healing took place early June right after school let out. My husband came up with an idea to host a community block party for all of the kids in the subdivision. I looked at him and said, "I'm totally behind this. Let’s do this." From that point on I recognized that the healing would have to start within communities that aren't recognized for what they were made to be. A "COMMUNE-UNITY" as I like to break the term down. Commune is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as being "a place where people living together and sharing possessions and responsibilities." Unity is defined in the same book as being, "a state of being joined as a whole." When I stepped back to look at what was happening at that first block party through the lens of the kids present, I saw several things, but the one thing that stuck out to me was joy filled with unity. They didn't look at each other as being different or even from all over the world all they saw was that their little light was shining through something that seemed so natural---COMMUNITY! So when the "Project Makers" and "Project Connectors" of ONE Wellness Project, sees beauty, we simply see what the children see and that is nothing major because "beauty lies in the eye of the beholder." Which entails capturing life, love, joy, purpose, peace, and unity! ONE Wellness Project, Inc. is a 501(c)3 nonprofit founded in 2015 by community advocates dedicated to a life of health & wellness. Our goal is to continue serving each community through various events & services. We partner with local communities, schools, after-school programs and organizations to promote a healthy and active lifestyle by using community events, expressive arts, and fitness. We serve kids & teens, senior citizens, and our communities. We currently host six different projects throughout the year. They are as follows:
"Building communities through health & wellness!" Written by: Que'Ana Morris JacksonFounding/Creative Director of ONE Wellness Project The feature below is brought to you by Ella's Kids, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about Ella's Kids, please visit their website page: here.  Partnerships and empowerment with Ella's KidsFor more than 17 years, Ella’s Kids, Inc. has embraced Washington-area families in transitional housing with the love and support they need to nurture and sustain strong children. Inspired by the commitment of her parents, who played a critical role in the Washington community for over 50 years, Ella Strother founded Ella’s Kids to provide support to her community. Ella is a professional Certified Physician Assistant who has cared for inmates within the Washington DC metro area since 1998.
A lean nonprofit, Ella’s Kids collaborates with a network of local organizations—including Gifts For the Homeless, Cataada House, Center for Empowerment and Employment Training, Family Healing Headquarters Community Service, Susie C. Owens Empowerment Center, Ada Velasquez Community Food Bank, and MJ Holding Inc, a distributor of gaming, sports and entertainment supplies, to source clothing and school supplies, identify children and families in need, and streamline the delivery of basic necessities. Empowerment, which is central to Ella’s mission, is reinforced through courses in basic education, character development, life skills, computer skills, and career discovery to help women build both confidence and capacity on the path to stability, permanent housing, and employment opportunities. Ella’s Kids also draws upon decades of experience -- and a network of contacts -- to help women navigate the maze of licensed professionals available to them, including for HIV Education and testing, ex-offender support groups, drug, and alcohol addiction prevention support groups, court-approved relapse prevention, anger management, and conflict resolution. The organization’s work is typified by hands-on, responsive, and direct support of families in shelters–and an abiding commitment to ensure that no one is left behind. Ella is a pillar of efficiency and a powerful connector. As Anthony Banks, a board member of Ella’s Kids, told the Washington Post, “every dime is accounted for.” Ella’s Kids’ Backpack for Kids Drive, the initiative for which we are seeking funding, is about reducing pressure on teachers, creating a profound impact on students and their learning experiences, and providing Pre-K - 12th-grade students, as well as some challenged first-year college students, with the tools they need to succeed. The program’s objective is to ensure that children in need are prepared for the school year with the supplies they need on day one. The target audience for this program is underserved children in transitional housing in Washington DC, and we mainly concentrate on children and youth living in shelters or halfway houses (which house youth who were recently incarcerated and are preparing to return to school). Ella’s Kids is an entirely grant-funded and volunteer-driven nonprofit. During the calendar year 2018, we delivered goods to more than 1,200 women, families, and children within the Washington metro area. One Hundred percent of our funding is applied to the benefit of our community. We have no paid personnel, no rent, no office space. Storage space is donated by affiliates. The problem we are addressing is profound. With more than 76 percent of the estimated 87,000 students within Washington DC, public and charter schools enrolled in the free and reduced meal program, many parents are unable to provide basic school supplies for their children. Per-student funding for public education has dropped in recent years, and research suggests that a majority of public school students are living in poverty. Teachers, as a result, have resorted to spending money out of their own pockets. According to a recent study, ten percent of teachers spend $1,000 or more. But equity gaps persist in low-income communities. And, even with teachers’ generous help, DC teachers report that many students still attend school without the basic supplies needed to learn. Although affluent schools are often able to fund school supply purchases with support from parents or PTAs, a high concentration of students from low-income families within a given district means that communities and families with the greatest need are often the least equipped to provide supplies for their students. In order to ensure that our work is both efficient and responsive, Ella's Kids partners with local organizations working directly with families and schools to understand communities’ specific needs, and ensure fast, efficient distribution. For example, the needs of high school boys differ from girls. And the needs of older children vary widely from their younger peers. We also talk to parents and teachers at the schools we serve to make sure we are providing supplies that will be used in class. We make sure our backpacks are not one-size-fits-all. Local partners and ground truth ensure that we are providing grade-appropriate supplies that get used, make an impact--and last. Unlike larger, national nonprofits that operate with high overhead to dispense large-scale, undifferentiated solutions, our volunteer network is able to quickly offer highly-targeted solutions to individual schools, classrooms, and even students with relatively little input. We know the communities we serve, we know how to identify where the need is greatest, and our work is entirely direct action. And we know that there is more work to do. As a small, lean nonprofit, our overhead costs are non-existent. That means that every dollar we receive goes directly to DC kids who need help. Supporting our efficient infrastructure for distributing services directly to kids in need is an uncommonly direct way to advance the goal of improving the conditions of women and children in DC. Ella’s Kids would use a combination of qualitative and quantitative strategies to measure, quantify, and report on the outcomes that stem from See Beautiful's investment. We evaluate our impact based on the number of backpacks we hand out, the number of children we serve, the size of our annual events, and the number of volunteers who work with us. From a qualitative standpoint, we solicit feedback from partners to ensure that we provide the most helpful, timely supplies possible to local children. Most importantly, we evaluate our outcomes through the stories of the families we serve. Five are outlined below. These individuals and families have been provided many of the following in our outreach: winter clothing, school supplies, emergency groceries, baby supplies when needed, referrals to addiction prevention programs, job training referrals, mentoring, connections to activities for youth, holiday gifts, Thanksgiving food baskets, assistance with transportation for job interviews, and furniture.
The feature below is brought to you by Life Choices, Inc, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about Life Choices, Inc, please visit their website page: here.  Strength for today and a new hope for tomorrowLife Choices, Inc. has been helping others “see beautiful” since 1984. While originally operating as a pregnancy crisis hotline and then as a resource center, supplying physical items such as diapers and wipes to pregnant women in need, today, there are three branches of the ministry that enable us to see every life valued. 1. PREVENTION: My Choice Education – From elementary students to middle school and high school students to prison inmates, we help individuals see beautiful in themselves and others by teaching a sexual integrity curriculum that includes an in-depth message on self-worth, healthy relationships, and setting healthy boundaries. 2. INTERVENTION: My Choice Medical Clinic – Our clinic staff often see men and women at a point of crisis. Whether they are facing an unplanned pregnancy, coping with the aftermath of an abortion, or hearing that they tested positive for an STD/STI, we help people see beautiful despite their circumstances by instilling hope, self-worth, and knowledge. 3. RESTORATION: The Inn, a Maternity Home – With a unique opportunity to truly pour into the life of an individual in a family setting, The Inn is helping to restore beauty, two lives at a time (momma and baby). The Inn is really what we want to share with you all! After seeing multiple women in our clinics facing the threat of homelessness, we knew that there was something missing in our efforts to see every life valued. How can the life of the mother or the baby truly be valued if they are leaving our doors to live on the street? It took almost 5 years for the vision of a maternity home to become a reality, but during that time, even though it was a difficult process, we knew we couldn’t give up. There was only one other home specifically for pregnant women within a 3-hour radius. That home was consistently full, with a waiting list, and when moms who were not placing for adoption left for the hospital, they weren’t allowed to return. We knew we needed to provide something for these women and children, whether they choose parenting or adoption, that would be there with them through the difficult and challenging post-partum period. Our exit goal for each woman is individualized but typically occurs before 6 months after birth. When we opened our doors in October of 2017, we knew we were in for an adventure, but we didn’t have a clue what all we would face! Each resident that comes through our doors has their own unique story and unique challenges. We have faced traumas such as prostitution, childhood drug addictions, abuse, prior imprisonments, custody battles, and more. Consistently, we are also entering the world of assisted sobriety (only a few homes in the nation accept residents in assisted sobriety programs). Through it all, we are walking with each woman to reach individualized goals that will lead her toward community-based self-sufficiency. Those goals cover five areas: physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual. Every step forward helps these women to see beautiful again, or maybe even for the first time. One resident described The Inn as a lifestyle makeover. Why? Because it changed everything in her life – from relationships, to what she ate, how she dressed, what she watched on TV, and more. She said, “Without [The Inn], I wouldn’t have gotten a second chance to be the best mom I could be.” With a family-style atmosphere, a lot of “programming” happens in day-to-day life. In fact, a lot of heavier conversations naturally take place in the car going to and from multiple clinic and doctor appointments. From budgeting to parenting to nutrition and so much more, The Inn is equipping each and every woman to live a life in which she can see beautiful even on the most difficult days. Despite her past, she is loved, she has value, and she is not alone. To borrow a quote, they now have “strength for today and a new hope for tomorrow.” Written by: Bri ShermanDevelopment Assistant at Life Choices, Inc. The feature below is brought to you by Global Seed Savers, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. To learn more about Global Seed Savers, please visit their website page: here.  BASS Farmers Elizabeth and Connie sorting seeds at our founding seed library The Seeds of Change are Growing in the PhilippinesGlobal Seed Savers works on a grassroots level to help return farmers to the collective indigenous knowledge and practice of seed saving. Through encouraging smallholder farmers in the Philippines to return to the practice of growing and saving their own seeds, we are providing farmers with the tools and support needed to be independent, self-sustainable, and to restore sovereignty over their food system and their lives. We do this through our comprehensive programs - technical and educational training on seed saving and permaculture design, and by establishing seed libraries. What started with a core group of seven farmers in 2015 has grown into an official farmers association, the Benguet Association of Seed Savers (BASS) now with 20 active members and growing. Our model is also spreading to Cebu (in the southern Philippines) as we launch the Cebu Seed Savers and build this nationwide and world-connected movement to restore food sovereignty and ensure farmers access to locally produced seeds. Since 2015, Global Seed Savers in collaboration with our partner farmers have:
We know our model works and are ready to see it expand!  But let’s take a step back, you might be thinking, “Why do seeds matter?” Believe us they do... and here is why. Seeds are the foundation of our food system and up until 30-40 years ago, we had a great abundance of diversity and varieties. Farmers in all pockets of the world planted and observed and saved the best of their crop in seeds from season to season. This practice ensured that seeds can do what they are meant to do... adapt and become more vigorous over time. Seeds are the most beautiful self-replicating system we have and when farmers can select and save seeds after each planting amazing adaptation occurs like resistance to pests, diseases, better taste, etc. In essence, they are carrying the best from one growing season to the next! As the industrialization and corporate ownership of our food system has expanded and three major companies now own our food in the form of seed and fertilizers, it is essential that we return to the collective practice of saving seeds! This is the movement we are honored to help build in the Philippines. This is how we “See Beautiful!” You also might be thinking, “Why the Philippines?” For us the Philippines is personal. 13 years ago I boarded an airplane and left for the adventure of a lifetime as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines. During my two-plus years there, I lived and worked side by side with Filipino farming communities listening and learning from them. These relationships and community are what inspired the creation of Global Seed Savers. What started with one family farm and my Peace Corps experience has now grown into a nationwide movement of Filipino Farmers actively restoring sovereignty over their food system. The Philippines also matters on a world scale and here’s why... The Philippines was recently listed as one of the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world and Southeast Asia’s largest producer of GMO crops with 70% of the country dedicated to agricultural land. Because of this, we believe the work and models being developed in the Philippines are of the utmost importance. The ability to impact the agricultural system and relinquish smallholder farmers’ dependence on large bio-chemical agricultural companies and helping farmers to prevent further catastrophic damage from our changing climate is paramount. At Global Seed Savers, we are honored to work with countless dedicated Filipino Farmers, who against all the odds and challenges facing them are actively building community and returning to their roots by saving and sharing seeds. This is an audacious act in the face of our current industrial food system and it is these dedicated farmers who “See Beautiful” each day with each seed they plant, sow, and share! One of our most profound “See Beautiful” moments happened last fall after Typhoon Mangkhut hammered the Northern Philippines and left many of our partner farmers lands destroyed.  Farmer Elizabeth near the landslide that washed through her land and home One Farmer, Elizabeth Martin lost everything in the typhoon. Elizabeth and her extended family lived in three small houses on the roadside in Ucab, Itogon, Benguet, a place that had been in her family for many generations. Typhoon Mangkhut ravaged the region and her home and land were literally washed away with everything they owned. Elizabeth shared, "I remember clearly how I felt after the typhoon. I remember how my friends from BASS and GSS were the first to ask how I was. I remember feeling like I was important and that I was part of a family—even after I lost everything. It really was a big help that I knew there were people who cared for me."  Thanks to our founding seed library, just days after the storm Elizabeth and our other farmers were all able to access seeds and begin replanting right away. Elizabeth demonstrated the true spirit of resilience and has since rebuilt her life and is a proud member of the Benguet Association of Seed Savers and recently joined the GSS Team as a Field Coordinator. This is the model we are working to spread throughout the Philippines. We are slowly, one farmer, and one community at a time, building our own collective future that is rooted in the land, in the soil, and in the seed. We hope you will join us! To learn more about Global Seed Savers please visit us at: www.globalseedsavers.org Written by: Sherry ManningFounder and Executive Director of Global Seed Savers |
See beautiful in yourself.
|
RSS Feed
