DO-GOODERS
Ten million meals starts with fifty stylish products. In a partnership that will help put food in the hands of starving children all around the world, the Feed USA + Target collection will launch on Sunday, June 30th and will donate a portion of its proceeds toward those in need.
FEED USA is an organization that was co-founded by designer Lauren Bush Lauren to help raise funds for the United Nations World Food Programme's School Feeding efforts. This new retail partnership with Target will be a limited time offer to benefit Feeding America and will feature fifty different products that they expect will help fund ten million meals for children in need. One way they have helped raise funds for their project in the past was by opening a retail partnership called FEED partner which, as of 2011, has helped FEED provide 60 million meals to school children in developing countries.
As a long time supporter of Charity: Water, lead singer Martin Gore and his legendary band have donated each of their personal birthdays in order to help provide water for those in need.
Depeche Mode is achieving this by asking fans and supporters to help celebrate their birthdays by donating to the organization's website. Working in conjunction with luxury watch brand Hublot, this project aims at providing drinking water to people in underdeveloped countries. By donating only $20, Charity: Water will be able to provide one person with clean water. Over $10,000 has been raised so far since the project launched with 439 supporters also helping by donating their own birthdays.
A new video for a television series called The Life has recently popped up on Jada Pinkett Smith's website Don't Sell Bodies, which helps advocate awareness and prevention of human slavery and sexual exploitation. This series has just finished its first pilot episode chronicling the struggles of under-aged sex trafficking in New York City. They cover many perspectives of the sex trafficking phenomenon including the teenagers and pimps involved, as well as the individuals attempting to help fight the problem.
To designate somebody a freak in a place like NYC is a bold and highly subjective statement. Yet if there is anywhere on earth where one is not only guaranteed to find somebody you can call a freak, but would also be sure that said person would be proud to be called one, it is certainly at Coney Island's long-running Mermaid Parade.
This may all change though if Coney Island US, the tiny non-profit who organize this event are not able to raise enough money to cover the event. From all of the money that has been lost in the wake of Superstorm Sandy and as a result of increased regulations, they are in more danger than ever of not being able to put on the event at all. This is where you come in. At 8pm on Thursday, June 20, Abracadabra NYC presents the Coney Island Mermaid Parade Pre-Party which will take place at the Village Lantern (167 Bleecker Street) to help keep this New York institution alive.
The Municipal Art Society of New York celebrates its young urbanists with a late night soiree after the presentation of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal to Dr. Judith Rodin, President, and David Rockefeller, Jr., Board Chair of The Rockefeller Foundation.
An urbanist is the name given to MAS's mid-career members who are helping them in their mission to strive for a future of more flexible and livable urban environments in NYC. MAS, who are a non-profit organization, have been encouraging cultural, economic, environmental, and social change to promote this mission for 120 years. MAS acknowledges the passion that their urbanists have for New York City and wish to return the favor on Thursday, June 13th. Between 9pm and Midnight, urbanists will convene at Michael Jordan's Steakhouse in the midst of historic Grand Central Terminal in order to celebrate this third annual event by witnessing the medal presentation ceremony and mingling with a number of like-minded individuals. If you would like to purchase tickets for this event then click here.
Green Day, Ed Sheeran, Mumford & Sons, and others are singing classic protest songs to fight back against poverty. Called agit8 and prestented by ONE, the project is focused on ending poverty by 2030. The organization states that ending proverty, "won't happen on its own and we need millions more voices to urge those in power to finish the job."
ONE was co-founded by Bono, leader singer of the band U2, and is "a campaigning and advocacy organization of more than three million people taking action to end extreme poverty and preventable disease." This is just the latest in ONE's projects to promote a better world. The timing of the project coincides with the G8 Summit in the UK, a meeting of the most powerful world leaders.
Between the buzz and whir of city traffic and the bedlam of your rush hour commute, do not be surprised if you suddenly begin to hear the opening notes of Haydn's "Sonata in F" creeping out of the urban maelstrom. More likely than not, you may also begin to hear the sound of a little girl enthusiastically banging out her own tune on a piano.
Sing For Hope's latest project has brought 88 pianos to the streets of all five boroughs in order to provide communities access to these instruments. Whether you are a Julliard graduate or a complete novice, these instruments have been distributed around the community to encourage anybody and everybody to give them a spin. Each piano has also been customized with artwork by many different public figures, visual artists, and organizations which include, among others, John Varvatos, the Bushwick School for Social Justice, and Arianna Huffington and the Huffington Post.
Rubber is a girl's best friend, or so Lily Cole would like us to think.
With a new line of jewelry, the unorthodox British model has devoted herself to rescuing rainforests in South America by launching a line of equally unorthodox products. Known for her fair complexion and unusually doll-like looks (and perhaps her Hollywood debut opposite Heath Ledger), Cole is using this philanthropic effort as a way to promote the utilization of one of Brazil's prime exports, rubber. Strangely enough, the primary material that she has chosen to comprise her new line of jewelry is, you guessed it, rubber.
Brooklyn-based photographer and surfer, Alberto Guglielmi is excited to announce the details with Joonbug regarding his latest portrait series called, "Surfer DNA," opening in NYC on Thursday, June 6th. Many New Yorkers are still feeling the wrath that was Hurricane Sandy and want to support those who are re-building their lives. There's true power in positive actions!
Drawing inspiration from his home breaks of Rockaway and Long Beach, Long Island, Alberto photographed a roster of amazingly talented individuals (many of whom are BK-based!) who are also avid surfers: designer Cynthia Rowley, chef Sam Talbot, artist Richard Phillips, actor Anna Sophie Robb, writer Julia Chaplin, filmmaker Mickey Detemple, hotelier Sean MacPherson, among others. Subjects were photographed with surfboard fins placed on their body with thin straps to symbolize the change that occurs when someone becomes a surfer—as Alberto says, "it doesn't just affect your life; it becomes part of your DNA."
One would be hard pressed to find another charity website that opens its About page with a sentence that boasts “We beat Oprah.” Then again, other charity websites are not like Crowdrise.
Founded by actor Edward Norton, producer Shauna Robertson, and the founders of Moosejaw, Robert and Jeffrey Wolfe, Crowdrise is an unusual charity website that allows people to use their site as platform to raise money for their own causes. With a quirky sense of humor that runs throughout their marketing campaign and online presence, Crowdrise believes that if people can have fun while giving back to a particular cause then it would encourage other people to do the same. As their motto says, “If you don't give back no one will like you.” By encouraging people to “tell two friends and one person who you don't like all that much about the site,” Crowdrise has certainly grown up into a promising philanthropic success story. Since it was founded only two years ago, in May 2010, this organization has helped raise millions of dollars for various causes. The initial campaign that formed the catalyst for the Crowdrise website was for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust during the New York City Marathon. In less than 8 weeks, the Crowdrise team raised $1.2 million mostly from small donors.
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