Social Impact Social Media

durfee.org Celebrating their 10th year --ince opening in 2010, Libros Schmibros has put over 20,000 books in circulation in Boyle Heights and beyond, and welcomed 17,600 patrons. Founder and co-Director David Kipen obviously has a passion for books and literature. He was a book critic and editor for the San Francisco Chronicle for seven years. He later became Director of Literature for the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a published author and frequently reviews books for the Wall Street Journal, KPCC radio and New York Times. Libros Schmibros’ mission to champion the pleasures of literature and its power to change lives by putting low-or no-cost books into all hands, native and immigrant on Los Angeles’s East and West sides. They are launching a bicycle library outreach program with bikes especially outfitted to carry 40 books. Volunteers will ride neighborhoods including outside local area schools to distribute books from the library If you are in the Los Angeles a...

Started in 1994 by Captain Charles Moore the organization’s initial mission was to restore the disappearing kelp forests and improve water quality along the California coast.   In 1997 all that changed. Captain Moore made a startling discovery at sea. Taking a shortcut from Hawaii to California aboard his 50-foot catamaran he veered away from his usual course and went through the rarely traveled North Pacific Gyre. greatnonprofits.org He recalls that “As I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean, I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic,” the captain wrote in an essay for Natural History. “It seemed unbelievable, but I never found a clear spot. In the week it took to cross the subtropical high, no matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere: bottles, bottle caps, wrappers, fragments.” From that point Algalita has pioneered the scientific study of plastic pollution in ...