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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project night night

1 in 50 American children will face homelessness in his or her lifetime.

That sucks. But there is something we can do to help homeless kids feel a little bit better. Check out Project Night Night. This is such sweet idea, pointed out to me by a college friend of mine (thanks, Stacy!) Project Night Night is a 501(c)(3) organization that helps homeless children have sweeter dreams.

Project Night Night donates over 25,000 Night Night Packages each year, free of charge, to homeless children who need childhood essentials to feel secure, cozy, ready to learn, and significant. Each Night Night Package contains a new security blanket, an age-appropriate children's book, and a stuffed animal -- all nestled inside of a new canvas tote bag. By providing objects of reliable comfort, Project Night Night reduces trauma and advances the emotional and cognitive well-being of the children they serve. Every child who receives a Night Night Packages gets to leave the shelter owning a book which encourages reading and family bonding, a security blanket to cuddle, and a stuffed animal which can become a cherished friend. Project Night Night's mission is to deliver a Night Night Package to every homeless child in the country who needs one.

You can help Project Night Night with a tax-deductible donation. You can donate any amount to help them run their wonderful program. You can also sponsor a Night Night Package with a $20 donation that will underwrite the cost of one Night Night Package to be delivered to a homeless child. This holiday season, you can also make a tribute donation on behalf of someone on your gift list and Project Night Night will send them a card of recognition.

You can also help Project Night Night without spending any money. Yay! Volunteer your time making and delivering Night Night Packages to local shelters or donate items for Night Night Packages (they are quite specific, so please be sure to read carefully the guidelines for donating items). Here's wishing you all a good night!

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heshima kenya

I want to tell you about an amazing organization helping a local community half a world away. NY Times' intrepid reporter and co-author of the incredible book "Half the Sky" (which you'll learn more about in a later post), Nick Kristof, tweeted a story last weekend about Chicagoans selling scarves to support refugee girls in Kenya. You can read the whole story here: "Shop Local, Help the World."

This holiday season, buy someone a gift of one of these gorgeous handmade scarves and help support Heshima Kenya, a nonprofit organization that provides shelter and comprehensive support services for east African refugee girls in Nairobi, Kenya. Girls served by Heshima make the scarves as part of the organization's Maisha Collective, a program that teaches business skills to girls who have completed tailoring and financial literacy training. All profits from the sales of the scarves are returned directly to Collective participants as weekly wages and support of their ongoing engagement in Heshima Kenya's education and shelter programs.

The Maisha Collective, a project of Heshima Kenya, empowers refugee girls and young women from DR Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Burundi with economic opportunities to rebuild their lives with peace and dignity. By managing a business collective that designs and produces a line of unique hand-dyed scarves, participants gain life-long business and marketing skills that develop their confidence and prepare them for future independence. Of the 60 girls currently served by Heshima, 18 participate in the collective and 10 of them are now self-reliant. Excuse me while I editorialize for just a moment, but I think that is amazing.

Heshima Kenya recently partnered with The Girl Effect on a fundraising campaign, and I think by now you know how I feel about the movement and the awesome potential and importance of empowering girls. If you want to help, but don't want to purchase a scarf, you can make a donation directly to Heshima Kenya and help girls lift up their own lives and the world around them. If you live in the Chicago area, you can also purchase a scarf at Flourish Studios, 3020 N. Lincoln Chicago, Illinois (I am adoring the Flourish Studios website right now, too, by the way. You should check it out.)

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movember

During the last of couple years a strange phenomenon has occurred. Moustaches mysteriously sprouted on thousands of men’s faces during the month of November, in the US and around the world. It's not evolution or hibernation, folks...it's Movember.

Men start Movember 1st clean shaven, and then for the rest of the month, these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, effectively become walking, talking billboards for the often ignored issue of men’s health. Movember raises awareness and funds for causes that support prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men. The funds raised are directed to programs run directly by Movember and their men’s health partners, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG, the Lance Armstrong Foundation. 

This month, the hubs is getting on the philanthropy bandwagon and literally putting his money where his mouth is (well, just above) and growing his own Movember 'stache (Matt Hooban if you're searching the site). He's gotten quite a lot of looks and started quite a lot of conversations, I must say. And that is the whole idea: getting men involved in their own health and changing attitudes and habits relating to men’s health. Via the moustache, Movember aims to fulfill its vision of having an everlasting impact on the face of men’s health by continuing to spark conversation and spread awareness of men’s health issues each year.

And that's working, too. Last year, Movember raised over $80 million by over 400,000 participants around the globe. 83% of raised funds go toward programs supporting prostate cancer and other cancers effecting men. It's fairly certain that if you ask around, you will find someone who is participating in Movember, and you can support them by making a donation. If you don't know anyone, might I suggest you donate to a certain husband of mine? I also know a couple more awesome moustached gents who could use some donations, too. Or, you can just make a general donation.

Here's are what I think are the most important takeaways from this campaign: 1. Men are awesome givers, too. And not just of their money, but of their time and even their faces. 2. Most cancers are highly curable if caught in the early stages - including prostate and testicular cancer. Early detection, diagnosis, and effective treatment are vitally important and will ultimately reduce the number of deaths from cancer.

And for those of you just catching the tail end of Movember and sad that you missed out on all the fun - there's still one more day left in Movember, so here ya go...

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