safe horizon

A wonderful friend, Lynette, sent me a message yesterday telling me about a cool event that's taking place in NYC today and tomorrow:

Urban Sanctuary Shopping Benefit for Safe Horizon
Thursday & Friday, December 8 & 9,  10:00am - 8:00pm
Rockefeller Center, 636 Fifth Avenue at 51st Street, New York, New York

The benefit will be held at Faconnable's 5th avenue flagship store to help raise money and awareness for Safe Horizon, the nation's largest provider of services for victims of crime and abuse. Bring an upwrapped toy with you to the event and be entered to win a VIP gift bag. It promises to be a swank event with Kelly Rutherford from 'Gossip Girl' hosting and vendors selling their wares including Vinci, Dermalogica, Smartcar, Alize, Votre Vu, Dyanne Bell Jewelry, and more! The organizers of this event, Urban Sanctuary, have a simple mission: to offer companies an opportunity to 'make a profit while making a difference' through a series of interactive retail events that raise money and awareness for various causes and organizations. We like that type of mission.

This event will benefit Safe Horizon, the largest victims’ services agency in the United States. They have 57 locations serving more than 250,000 children, adults, and families affected by crime and abuse throughout New York City each year. Safe Horizon offers a number of vitally important programs, including 24-hour hotlines. If you need help, call. If you see abuse, report it. Safe Horizon provides a Streetwork Project for Homeless Youth, Child Advocacy Centers, Domestic Violence Law Project, Immigration Law Project, Counseling Centers, Community Programs, Court Programs, Domestic Violence Shelters, and Project SAFE - a free service that installs new locks or cylinders in the homes of those who have filed police reports.

You don't have to go to a fancy shopping event to help Safe Horizon. Make this holiday a special one for children and youth who wish for comfort, safety, and happiness with a donation. Your donation supports their 24-hour hotlines, domestic violence shelters, community services, Child Advocacy Centers, trauma counseling, and group services for victims of crime and abuse, homeless youth, and families of homicide victims. Safe Horizon spends 84 cents per dollar on programs that help those affected by violence and abuse. You can also buy a gift for someone from Safe Horizon's online store, Hope Shop, where you can purchase special gifts that are fashionable and powerful.

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RAINN

Our attention has been brought to this next issue by some very high profile news stories about disgusting dignitaries taking liberties with other people's bodies. Enter this wonderful organization that is doing something about it. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network is the nation's largest anti-sexual assault organization. RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1.800.656.HOPE and the National Sexual Assault Online Hotline, and publicizes the hotlines' free, confidential services; educates the public about sexual assault; and leads national efforts to prevent sexual assault, improve services to victims, and enure that rapists are brought to justice.

First of all, if you're in NY and into Broadway and/or Tori Amos, get tix to Broadway Sings Tori on June 27th 8pm featuring a star-studded Broadway cast singing the music of 10-time Grammy nominee Tori Amos. All proceeds from the concert go directly to RAINN.

You can very easily help fund RAINN's important mission by shopping! Use the EZ Shopper App to shop for just about anything that you would normally buy (say...Brita water filters), from the brands and stores you would normally choose (Amazon.com), at the prices you would normally pay (2-pack for $26.99). But when you shop through this site, you're also helping RAINN benefit from all your purchases!

In order for your purchases to count toward a contribution to RAINN, download the EZ Shopper App to your computer, then any purchases you make from any listed retailer's website will benefit RAINN even if you don't start your shopping from the site. If you haven't downloaded the EZ Shopper App, just start shopping from here and RAINN will benefit from your online shopping.

A note about where your money is going: the nonprofitshoppingmall (NPSM) only pays 60% of revenues collected through the site to the RAINN on a quarterly basis, so it's not 100% of your contribution. But I look at it this way: a very worthy cause is receiving funding from major corporate retailers at no cost to you, so bring it.

Don't need linen pants or ebooks but still want to help RAINN? Make a donation.

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love our children USA & childhelp

So I'm sure everyone on Facebook by now has heard about this campaign to change your profile photo to a childhood cartoon to fight against child abuse. Just about everyone did it and to that I say 'kudos.' Caring is good. But some very astute FB'ers, like my beautiful friend Kristin, took it a step further and asked "what now?" Changing your photo and showing your support is great, but it isn't going to stop a kid from getting abused or help a parent get educated on how to manage their anger.  She asked me what we CAN do to actually make a difference.

The official Facebook page for the cartoon campaign lists a bunch of websites for child abuse organizations (some of which are either in Europe or don't work). You can choose one the organizations to which you would like to make a donation.  Of the charities listed through this campaign, I would recommend Childhelp.

Childhelp is a national 501(c)(3) with good visibility right on their website. Over ninety cents out of every dollar contributed to Childhelp goes to provide direct services to Childhelp children and families. They operate the 24-hour National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-4-A-CHILD) and several children's advocacy centers, foster care programs, prevention, education and training, and national programs raising awareness about child abuse.

I was inspired to find out what else was out there in the way of child abuse prevention or assistance organizations, and after my own deeper research I found Love Our Children USA.  I like this one.  They sponsored the STOMP Out Bullying campaign, a national anti-bullying and cyberbullying program for kids and teens, an issue that has come to all of our attention due to the spate of recent teen suicides.  Sad.

On a lighter note, you can support this organization with a donation or buy gifts.  The blue ribbon pins and blue rubber bracelets are another easy way to show your support of raising awareness of child abuse and bullying.  And check this out: you can buy tickets to a Broadway show from this website and givenik will donate 5% to Love Our Children USA.  Apparently you can also book travel using this link to Orbitz and a portion of the profits of each booking will go to support Love Our Children USA.  I love this stuff.

Perhaps most importantly, if you know or suspect that a child is being abused, you must say something.  Call the National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-4-A-CHILD).  Whatever you choose to do to join in the fight against child abuse today and every day: do something.

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