March 07, 2010

New York Times: Not Your Banks’ Bailouts: Stores Too Loved to Fail

BELOVED Ray Alvarez, owner of Ray’s Candy Store in the East Village, is deeply in debt, and young people are trying to help.

The bike store had become a wine bar. The new apartments were breathtakingly expensive. Then kids from the neighborhood formed a protective guard around a gnarly old candy store on Avenue A and Seventh Street in Manhattan.

For the last month, a group of high school and college students has been running volunteer deliveries on Saturday nights for Ray’s Candy Store, an all-night chapel of East Village life packed with fond, fervent and freakish memories, but not exactly jammed with customers. With their deliveries — need an egg cream and Belgian fries at 3 a.m.? — the kids hope to drum up business for Ray’s until the spring, when more people are walking the streets.

How do the delivery teams get around? “Skateboards,” Arianna Gil, 16, said. “Scooters, bike and feet. All will be utilized.”

Already, friends and neighbors have run two fund-raisers to help the candy store’s owner, Ray Alvarez, pay thousands of dollars in overdue bills; another is planned for Monday night at the Theater for the New City.

In the age of bailouts, it turns out that not all rescue operations involve numbers ending in “illions.”  Read Story.

March 3, 2010 – Coloradoan.com – USA

While nonprofit donor dollars might be down during these tight times, more businesses than ever are wanting to donate their time and services.

With that in mind, A-Train Marketing Communications Inc. and United Way of Larimer County have teamed up to create a “Spring into Giving” auction to pair the needs of local nonprofits with the services of local businesses.

The silent auction is Saturday at the Armory Event Hall, 314 E. Mountain Ave., and local nonprofits such as Neighbor to Neighbor, a nonprofit that provides housing and other basic services to those in need, will be on hand to bid on prepackaged services that local businesses have donated.

Gretchen Gaede, president of A-Train, wanted to help nonprofits since her company celebrated its 10-year anniversary more than a year ago.

In talking with nonprofits, Gaede realized a lot of companies are able to give services and time but not money right now. Read Story.

February 24, 2010 – FOX 21 Online – USA

He started his own foundation, has been featured on national TV and has received honors from two U.S. Presidents.  And he’s only in the 6th grade!

At the age of 12, Zach Bonner has been recognized nationwide for his success helping underprivileged youth.  He came to the Marshall School with a message; you are never too young to make a difference.  “Just find a cause that you are passionate about or see a problem in your school or community and just think to yourself, how can I make a difference and than just get out there and do it,” said Zach Bonner of Tampa, Fla.

In 2005, Bonner started his own non–profit, The Little Red Wagon Foundation so he could help kids in distressed situations.  In 2007; he began his Walk Across America.  “The goal of it was to bring as much awareness as possible to the over 1.3 million homeless youth here in this country,” said Bonner.  Read More.

February 16, 2010 – Minneapolis Star Tribune – USA

The city challenged residents to perform 1,000 Random Acts of Kindness. As their thermometer shows, they’re delivering.

The librarians put together a few of their own dollars to pay down fines on overdue books. A man at the Olde Main café paid for somebody’s coffee across the room. A woman whipped up enough ham-and-bean soup to feed 50 people and took it, along with bowls and spoons, over to the hunger relief kitchen. A teenager helped shovel a car out of a snowbank. An anonymous person hid a $100 bill downtown, with a simple note: “Hope this brightens your day.”

Since Feb. 1, a quirky new project in Elk River called 1,000 Random Acts of Kindness is igniting a curious trend: Flares of unexpected generosity, both large and small. During the monthlong campaign, residents have been encouraged to call a special phone line, mail a pre-printed post card or send an e-mail if they perform or receive some act of kindness.   Read Story.

February 13, 2010 – Rutland Herald – USA

There’s the story of a Haitian man who was walking down the road staring at his wife and children who were waving at him from their doorstep when he saw the roof collapse on top of them, killing them.

There are more than a million people living in tents on concrete-dusted streets because they’re too scared to live under a roof, out of fear they may also get killed, said Rutland lawyer Bill Meub, who returned from his relief effort in Haiti this week.

Then there’s also an account of a 5-year-old Rutland girl who donated all her money from the tooth fairy to save the lives of children she would never meet.

Meub and his wife and fellow humanitarian Carolyn, say local donors like the dozens of Rutland school children who collected penny after penny for Haiti relief efforts and gave the $3,000 collection to orphanages Thursday, will directly help the people dying and struggling in the impoverished country, further destroyed by a massive earthquake and after-shock last month.  Read More.

February 12, 2010 – San Diego News Network – USA

Three years before graduating UCLA with a business degree, Alisa Le read a disheartening article about a 19-year-old woman in Baghdad who was “just waiting to die” after learning her country’s Minister of Education had been kidnapped.

In the article, the young Iraqi woman spoke passionately about what she wanted to achieve in life, and of her education — something she viewed as the only way out of Baghdad. She went on to say that because she now saw no hope for education, she saw no hope for her future.

Le was taken aback. “This woman didn’t choose to be born into her body, nor I into mine,” she says. “I decided that I was going to help people like her, people that were born into an unfortunate situation. I feel like it is my responsibility to do so since I was gifted such a fortunate circumstance.”

It would be a year before Le could realize her goal. “I thought maybe a volunteer opportunity would fall into my lap, or I would just get an idea of what to do,” she says.

Wanting to be more proactive, Le began throwing house parties. But these weren’t typical college keggers.   Read Story.  

February 14, 2010 – SI.com – USA

It’s fitting that Valentine’s Day, a day when people lead with their hearts, fell during the Vancouver Games. Olympians bring the same dedication to training and competing as they do to supporting their communities and the causes that inspire them. Here are some examples.

 Alpine skiers competing in the men’s downhill in Kitzbuehel, Austria and the women’s super G in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy this season raised over $90,000 in online auctions for the bibs they wore during competitions.

The bib from Swiss speed racer Didier Cuche of Switzerland fetched the highest bid ($16,209), Bode Miller earned top dollar among U.S. male skiers ($2,504), and Ted Ligety’s went for $1,075. SI cover girl Lindsey Vonn raised the most money among the women ($4,000).

Proceeds went to the American Red Cross. Read Story.

February 8, 2010 – New York Times – USA

Amy Coenen placed 20 $5 bills, each inscribed with quotations on the theme of giving, in places around the city — the straw container at a Starbucks, the floor of an apartment building lobby — where they might be found and inspire generosity.

And Helen Coster slipped the whole $100 into a thank-you card and asked a friend to hand it to the clerk at Duane Reade who regularly cheers her up.

As acts of philanthropy go, none of the above would rate particularly high on any measure of effectiveness. They do get points for creativity, however, which, to Courtney Martin, the 30-year-old minor-league benefactor who spawned them, is an undervalued aspect of charitable giving.

“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted,” she likes to say, quoting a fellow maladjust, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Read More.

February  02, 2010 – UCLA Today – USA

Bill Gates, the legend goes, started the empire that would one day become Microsoft in his garage. More recently, Cameron Cohen got a start on what looks to be a promising future while stuck at home in a hip-to-toe leg brace for six months. Cameron taught himself computer programming, came up with and wrote the software for a new iPhone/iPod application called iSketch and submitted it to Apple Inc., which now sells it in its online apps store.

All this would be an achievement for anyone, but given that Cameron is only 11 years old and in the sixth grade, it’s amazing.

Like Gates, Cameron has become a philanthropist. He decided to donate a substantial portion of his iSketch profits to Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital, where his story began last March when he underwent surgery for what fortunately turned out to be a benign bone tumor. He remained hospitalized for about 10 days, then headed home to West L.A. with his parents and older brother, where he would be stuck hobbling around for months instead of being the active tennis, football and basketball-playing boy he usually was. Read Story.