Social Impact Social Media

Melissa Hargett is a successful Alabama business woman. She launched the Shoals Area Families Foundation (SAF) to assist temporarily impoverished families with making ends meet. Families that request assistance also sign up as part of an innovative "give back program," where in exchange for support they agree to volunteer at start-up local thrift shop. Shoals Area Families was formed to assist local temporarily impoverished families with utilities, food and shelter to give them a way to give back and to train them with a new skill that will hopefully break the cycle of impoverishment. The mission is simple -One to take person at a time over the poverty line. SAF is opening a thrift store to help fund the foundation.  They have a 10,000 square foot building where they take donations, process items, and sale the merchandise. The families they work with come to the organization through referrals from public school counselors and through the SAF Facebook page, https...

forbes.com Their statement that “The greatest casualty is to be forgotten” really says a lot in summing up the organization’s mission.   The vision IS achievable - To foster the most successful, well-adjusted generation of wounded service members in our nation's history. And their road map to do so is one certainly worthy of support with three simple but impactful steps. ·          To raise awareness and enlist the public's aid for the needs of injured service members. ·          To help injured service members aid and assist each other. ·          To provide unique, direct programs and services to meet the needs of injured service members As of December 2014 the organization had served over 61,000 veterans and nearly 9,000 families. Services and programs include Post Traumatic Stress Disorder coping skills, family support, peer mentoring, ec...

Sierra Leone Rising, formerly The Kposowa Foundation, is a 501c3 non-profit organization that was formed in 2005 by co-founders, Sarah Culberson and John Woehrle to  build and restore much needed educational facilities, provide safe clean drinking water, solar electricity and agricultural development in the village of  Bumpe Sierra Leone. While the nonprofit has plans for a much broader global impact over time Bumpe was selected because Sarah, adopted and raised by a white family in the U.S., traced her natural family and heritage there. Visiting Bumpe to trace her roots Sarah discovered human suffering and need that she could not turn her back on. The Bumpe high school, once a renowned boarding school with an enrollment of over 600 students from as far away as Nigeria, was destroyed by R.U.F. rebels during Sierra Leone's 11-year-long civil was from 1991-2002. The Civil war also caused serious and grotesque human rights violati...

According to Betsy K. Emerick, PhD; the life expectancy for Afghan women is 44 years.  The Afghan literacy rates are 31% for men and 15% for women The average Afghan  woman will bear 7.4 children and 57% of Afghan girls marry before the legal age of 16. This is why she needs our help to make a difference by using social media to spread the word to help her continue Afghan Girls Schools.  The schools are located in refugee camps in Pakistan that have been home to nearly 2 million Afghan refugees for over a decade.  The schools are currently educating 600 girls. It costs $85 to pay a teacher's salary for  one month,  a school uniform costs $5, a sewing machine costs $40 and you can give a girl a year's education for  just $55. For more information email: afghangirlsschools@yahoo.com IMAGE - theirworld.org

Sitting at "Five," the bar at Hotel Shattuck Plaza in Berkeley, CA I struck up a great conversation about social responsibility and giving back with Chris and Roy-- 2 independent contractors taking a break from their work.    Their passion and personal mission is to reach out and help  teens "aging out" of our social services system and kids with terminal illnesses whose parents -- as a result of drug addiction, finances or other circumstances -- really aren't there for these kids. Through our conversation I learned about  a national organization called  Independent Order of Odd Fellows (LOOF) and their charitable work including education- literally getting kids to college and striped bass fishing trips - giving many kids  their first experience outside of gang and violence riddled neighborhoods. They even have a summer camp program. What's more I mentioned to Chris and Roy, in passing, my own little effort with my ki...

Founded in 1988 the charity whose volunteers once built hiking trails, worked in libraries, and did myriad other tasks, has overhauled its service program to focus on a single mission: improving graduation rates in struggling public schools. The transformation was tied to a Johns Hopkins research study worked on by Robert Balfanz,brother of City Year's President Jim Balfanz. According to the Johns Hopkins study the high-school dropout crisis is concentrated. Roughly 12 percent of the country’s high schools account for 50 percent of the students who don’t graduate. Says Robert Balfanz, “It all sort of clicked in my mind,” he says. “They can give us a team of 10 to 15 corps members who are trained and focused and are in the building 7 to 7.” If each volunteer works with 15 students who show warning signs that they might drop out, he says, “we can now reach 150 to 200 kids a day with that constant nagging and nurturing.”  The math and English tutoring and the volunteers’ work...