In this month’s blog, we cover a rather difficult topic – that of rape, sexual abuse and incest. Until we started working on this piece featuring Christina Ricci, the national spokesperson for RAINN (Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network) – the country’s leading anti-sexual assault organization, I wasn’t truly aware of the staggering numbers associated with these heinous crimes, their ongoing psychological effects and where public policy issues currently stand with respect to reporting, prosecuting and DNA testing. I was also sadly ignorant of the wide range of personal violence that often goes hand-in-hand with sexual assault. While disturbing on many levels, the wealth of information available on the RAINN website is an invaluable tool and I hope you’ll take the time to read through and learn from its hugely important messages.
The timing on this is especially crucial with schools letting out soon for summer and with graduation holidays just around the corner. RAINN is the go-to site for first-time freshman going away to college, anyone planning to move out on their own or those getting that first job away from home. On April 14, 2008, RAINN launched its newest outreach program, a safe, secure, anonymous place for victims to get help online. Using an instant-messaging style format, the National Sexual Assault Online Hotline allows sexual assault victims to communicate directly with trained crisis support volunteers available on www.rainn.org Together with its tele-based National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE), the organization will be able to provide a lifeline to victims trapped in situations where their only safe and secure link to the outside world may be through the Internet.
According to Scott Berkowitz, president & founder of RAINN, somewhere in America, someone is being sexually assaulted at the alarming rate of every two minutes. Almost half of these victims are under 18 and 80% are under 30. The new National Sexual Assault Online Hotline provides the services these young victims need, using the technology they embrace. In addition to providing support to victims of sexual assault, the National Sexual Assault Online Hotline provides information about recovery, medical issues, the criminal justice process, and local resources for family and friends of victims.
We hope you find this month’s feature a worthy one and that you’ll shop online to support RAINN programming now and going forward. We want to especially thank Christina Ricci for her participation in bringing this to our and your attention and before signing off, encourage you to become a RAINNMaker to support the organization’s ongoing initiatives.
We’ll have more on RAINN with our regular features in our May newsletter – coming soon.
For those of you unfamiliar with autism and its varied spectrum of disorders, take this month to learn more, as April is Autism Awareness Month. Additionally, through a UN resolution passed in 2007, April 2 is now officially World Autism Awareness Day. This UN resolution is one of only three official disease-specific United Nations Days and will bring the world’s attention to autism, a pervasive disorder that affects tens of millions. The World Autism Awareness Day resolution encourages all Member States to take measures to raise awareness about autism throughout society and to encourage early diagnosis and early intervention.
Autism is a complex neurobiological disorder that typically lasts throughout a person’s lifetime. It is part of a group of disorders known as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Today, 1 in 150 individuals is diagnosed with autism, making it more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined. A random disorder, autism crosses all racial, ethnic, and social boundaries equally and is four times more likely to strike boys than girls. Autism impairs a person’s ability to communicate and relate to others. It is also associated with rigid routines and repetitive behaviors, such as obsessively arranging objects or following very specific routines. Symptoms can range from very mild to quite severe.
Across the globe, the autism community is celebrating its members and holding special events to raise awareness and money for research to find answers to the questions of its increasing prevalence in children in all regions of the world. One of the most successful events bringing this community together is the Autism Speaks Walk Now For Autism - Virtual Walk sponsored by Toys R Us.
This month we offer an introduction to this growing global health crisis and its premier advocacy organization, Autism Speaks. In our interview with actor John Schneider, whose roles span from television’s Dukes of Hazzard to Broadway’s musical hit, CHICAGO, Schneider offers insights to his personal experience with autism and talks about his greatest role, as a father with an autistic son.
As a former Development Director for Special Olympics Southern California I have had many opportunities to interact with children and adults affected by varying degrees of autism. I am amazed at the progress that Autism Speaks has made in the short years since its inception and hugely impressed that the organization has been able to galvanize so many of the major autism nonprofits to act with one voice in its efforts to find answers to autism’s cause and to support the research efforts in discovering a breakthrough.
I’m also happy to highlight two of our retailers in conjunction with our focus on autism – please take a couple of minutes to see how they each support Autism Speaks
This April, more than 500 Barnes & Noble stores around the country will host special autism Storytimes. Everyone who has been touched by autism should know about them. A complete listings of all the event times and locations can be found here.
We’ll have more on these retailers and others in our April newsletter – watch for it on the 6th. We’ll also introduce some of our new partners, keep you posted on our financial, tax and insurance services and give you the scoop on how to stop junk mail AND save trees at the same time.
Please make a commitment to become a do-er and keep Do Something in mind when looking for volunteer opportunities for teens, young adults and you this summer. We thank our gracious hostess Emme for her support here and her ongoing dedication to awakening the spirit of giving inherent in each of us.
I know that technically speaking, it’s still winter – but for some reason, I feel like spring has sprung. With retailers showing bright colors, lush florals and dreamy vacation spots that constantly sweep across my screen, I think I may actually have a case of spring fever. Okay, so it might be a little early, but the upside to my restlessness is that I’m energized, excited and feel a change on the horizon – a change for the good and one that, with the help of Do Something, can be driven largely by young people from coast to coast.
It so happens that our people who care spokesperson for March, Emme, supermodel, television personality, best selling author and big time Do Something supporter, feels like I do. Emme also believes that young people have the power to act, to make a difference and to implement change. We are delighted to welcome her here and to introduce Do Something and its mission to those of you who might be unfamiliar with this dynamic youth-oriented organization. Do Something aims to inspire, support and celebrate a generation of do-ers: people who see the need to do something, believe in their ability to get it done, and then take action. The Do Something website is a community where young people learn, listen, speak, vote, volunteer, ask, and take action to make the world a better place. Currently, only 23% of the youth demographic actively volunteers. Hoping to create a do something generation: a world where more than 51% of young people are involved with community action, the Do Something site has something for everyone with their highly interactive, multi-media approach to inspiring change.
I was first introduced to Do Something on a flight from LA to New York, when by chance I was seated next to Mandy Moore’s guitar player who was on his way in to play the Brick Awards. Later, as I was looking for a community service activity for my 15 year-old, I was hugely impressed by the wide variety of options available to him both locally and abroad. Do Something makes it easy to get involved – whether you’re young or ‘old’, just watch this video and find your SOMETHING!
Our March newsletter will follow within a couple of days – watch for information about new nonprofit partnerships, eco-friendly office supplies and culinary news.Thank you again to Billy Bush and the Lollipop Theater Network for hosting our February homepage. We will keep Lollipop on our list of nonprofit partners and we encourage you to visit their site and keep the good work they’re doing in mind when you shop.
I can’t believe it’s the first of February already – so much is happening here at nonprofitshoppingmall.com that I can’t even begin to cover all the new ground we’ve broken since the holidays in this short blog space. First of all, we actually have two blogs goin’ within this site – this one and another, dedicated to retail promotions, on our shop the mall page. There, you’ll find Valentine’s Day ideas from ICE.com and Organic Style and an overview of our new eco-lifestyle retailers featured in our shop green category.
Before I introduce Billy Bush for our February people who care feature, I have to say, if and when you have an opportunity to visit the Los Angeles area, you must visit one of Chef David Myer’ restaurants – the food is amazing and we thank him for sharing his time with us and with Surfrider Foundation.
Amazing in a wholly different arena is the work being done by Lollipop Theater Network, the nonprofit organization chosen by Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush and highlighted as our default beneficiary for the month of February. For those of you who either openly or secretly follow entertainment news and personalities, Billy Bush is pretty much a household name. In addition to his on-air duties at Access Hollywood, Bush also serves as a contributor for NBC’s top-rated morning news program, Today, and is a member of the Board of Directors for Lollipop Theater Network — a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing the magic of movies to children confined to hospitals nationwide due to chronic or life-threatening illnesses. Whether you’re a 5th grader, a college student or just love films, you’ll know that there’s nothing like counting down the days until the season’s big blockbuster movie hits the theaters. If you’re a child confined to a hospital bed due to chronic or life-threatening illnesses, you can imagine that the thrill of seeing that first-run movie is unlikely to be on the agenda. Through Lollipop, these kids don’t have to wait for DVD releases, because they literally roll out the red carpet, distribute movie tickets and memorabilia, and screens movies only available in theaters. To ensure that no child ever misses a movie, Lollipop provides multiple screenings in group and bedside settings. In this month’s People Who Care feature, Billy Bush tells us how his commitment to Lollipop was sealed with his appearance on Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader, when he missed the answer to the question, ‘What was Civil War general “Stonewall” Jackson’s real first name?
International Volunteer Day (IVD) is an internationally observed day of thanks to the thousands of volunteers around the world actively working to implement social change in whichever form they might choose to take. Adopted and designated by the United Nations in 1985, IVD offers an opportunity for volunteer organizations and individual volunteers to raise awareness for their efforts at local, national and international levels. Over the years, December 5 has been celebrated with rallies, parades, community volunteer projects, environmental awareness campaigns, free medical care and advocacy campaigns. It’s a shame really that volunteerism is only recognized on an international scale one-day per year, as encouraging more people to contribute to the welfare of society as a whole should be an on-going task, with daily reminders 365 days-a-year.
Simple things to do to raise awareness for IVD might include:
Conducting a ‘time-donation’ campaign in the workplace through which people pledge community service hours to specific projects
Building roads, community centers or playgrounds using both donated materials and volunteer labor
Initiating a community recognition award or certificate program to recognize outstanding individual volunteers or organizations
Making a list of all the services which wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for volunteers and then go to the Points Of Light & Hands On Network website to find available volunteer opportunities nearby
Writing a blog and including photos from across the other side of the world to see this program at work in the field – that would be what I’m doing. I was in the Laotian city of Luang Prabang last week and saw the following banner as proof that this initiative is, in fact, active in relatively obscure areas.
More recently, the focus of IVD has shifted largely to monitoring and achieving the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals established at the Millennium Summit in September 2000, wherein the largest gathering of world leaders in history adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets, with a deadline of 2015. To manage the massive effort required in meeting these goals, United Nations Volunteers launched a global Internet volunteer resource network on December 5, 2002 that has since become the worldwide focal point for the IVD campaign. For information about volunteer activities across the globe, please visit www.WorldVolunteerWeb.org.
What Are The 8 Millennium Development Goals?
The Millennium Development Goals are a concise set of goals, numerical targets and quantifiable indicators to assess progress in development. The set includes 8 goals, 18 targets and over 40 indicators.
Click on each of the MDG icons to read how volunteers are contributing to achievement of the related goal.
MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
More than a billion people still live on less than US$1 a day: sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and parts of Europe and Central Asia are falling short of the poverty target. Target for 2015:
Halve the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and those who suffer from hunger.
MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education
As many as 113 million children do not attend school, but the target is within reach. India, for example, should have 95 percent of its children in school by 2005. Target for 2015:
Ensure that all boys and girls complete primary school.
MDG 3: Promote gender equality & empower women
Two-thirds of illiterates are women, and the rate of employment among women is two-thirds that of men. The proportion of seats in parliaments held by women is increasing, reaching about one third in Argentina, Mozambique and South Africa. Targets for 2005 and 2015:
Eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
MDG 4: Reduce child mortality
Every year nearly 11 million young children die before their fifth birthday, mainly from preventable illnesses, but that number is down from 15 million in 1980. Target for 2015:
Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five
MDG 5: Improve maternal health
In the developing world, the risk of dying in childbirth is one in 48, but virtually all countries now have safe motherhood programs. Target for 2015:
Reduce by three-quarters the ratio of women dying in childbirth.
MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Forty million people are living with HIV, including five million newly infected in 2001. Countries like Brazil, Senegal, Thailand and Uganda have shown that the spread of HIV can be stemmed. Target for 2015:
Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
More than one billion people lack access to safe drinking water and more than two billion lack sanitation. During the 1990s, however, nearly one billion people gained access to safe water and the same number to sanitation. Targets for 2015:
Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources.
By 2015: reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water.
By 2020: achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.
MDG 8: Develop a global partnership for development
Many developing countries spend more on debt service than on social services. New aid commitments made in the first half of 2002 could mean an additional $12 billion per year by 2006. Targets for 2015:
Develop further an open trading and financial system that includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction – nationally and internationally
Address the least developed countries’ special needs, and the special needs of landlocked and small-island developing States
Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt problems
Develop decent and productive work for youth
In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries
In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies – especially information and communications technologies.
There’s no doubt about it – the holidays are upon us and we’re well on our way to counting down to the New Year that lies just ahead. In keeping with the spirit of the season we’d like to welcome Sergeant Harvey Walden to our December People Who Care section. Most of you will know him best as the fitness instructor on VH1’s wildly popular CELEBRITY FIT CLUB. With DVD’s and workout merchandise available to help work off those inevitable extra holiday pounds, he’s also recently released a new book ‘HARVEY WALDEN’S NO EXCUSES FITNESS WORKOUT’ in which he shares his boot-camp routines for a healthier and more active lifestyle year-round. What you may not know about Sergeant Walden is that, since 1989, he’s been a strong supporter of the Marine Toys For Tots Foundation — and that’s why we’re honoring his favorite charity by making it our default beneficiary throughout the month.
After serving for more than 20 years in the US Marine Corps, Harvey retired from active duty in June 2007. During his career he was actively involved with and become a big supporter of the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation. Since it’s inception in 1947, the Toys for Tots program has grown steadily year over year becoming one of the most successful and widely known toy drives in the nation. It finally received its Foundation status in 1991 and was approved as an official activity of the US Marine Corps and an official mission of the Marine Corps Reserve by the Secretary of Defense in 1995. Since that time, this charitable endeavor has made the US Marines the unchallenged leaders in looking after children of all ages at Christmas. While poverty and homelessness continue to be serious challenges both domestically and abroad, Toys For Tots grandly embraces the spirit of giving for millions of needy children. In 2006 alone, more than 19.2 million toys were collected and distributed to 7.6 million children in all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. While drop-off locations are readily available in hundreds of communities from coast to coast, recent exposure by the press concerning toys produced with lead paint and other toxic materials has made the public wary of which toys to give and has put a damper on the number of toys currently being collected. With that in mind, please know that cash donations are also greatly appreciated in order to ensure the program’s continued success.
At nonprofitshoppingmall.com, we wholly support the efforts of Toys For Tots and proudly feature their long-time partner, Toys R Us on our Retail Top-40 Page. Because Toys For Tots is our default beneficiary through the month of December, we encourage anyone shopping for toys of any sort to start here. Any and all purchases made through our online mall will help raise the additional funds needed by the Marine Corps to continue their tradition of giving.
And while POINTS OF LIGHT & HANDS ON NETWORK are no longer our featured nonprofit beneficiary, it certainly doesn’t mean that they don’t need volunteer help now and throughout the months to come. If you missed last month’s PEOPLE WHO CARE feature with Nicole Forrester and Robert Newman from television’s GUIDING LIGHT, please take a look at their archived interview. We hope that we’re correct in believing that the holidays tend to bring out the spirit of generosity in most of us and that sharing time with those less fortunate is a great gift indeed.We’ve got lots more to share in the coming days – watch for our blog highlighting International Volunteer Day on December 5, our updated and expansive guide to Green Shopping and meet some of our new nonprofit partners.
You may have noticed that our homepage has a new look — we welcome Nicole Forester and Robert Newman from Guiding Light as our PEOPLE WHO CARE this November and feature their nonprofit partners, Points Of Light & Hands On Network, as our default nonprofit beneficiaries throughout the month. We wanted to focus on community service at this time of the year because so many people, coast to coast, need the kind of help that these volunteer networks provide. While the approaching holiday season does tend to bring out the spirit of giving in most of us, hunger, homelessness and poverty continue to be serious issues both here and abroad. The cast of Guiding Light has formed a lasting relationship with Points Of Light & Hands On Network – a partnership called Find Your Light, that has taken them across the nation, engaged them in a number of community projects and has made lasting impressions on the cast members in having done so. They began their Find Your Light campaign the week January of 22 – 26, 2007 by taking the entire cast and crew to the Gulf Coast to help rebuild homes devastated by Hurricane Katrina and participate in other volunteer activities throughout the surrounding region. Guiding Light’s crew filmed cast members at work in the Gulf Coast and viewers were given the opportunity to see the results in a special episode that aired on Wednesday, February 14, 2007. Since that time the cast has been actively involved in various projects through Points Of Light & Hands On Network affiliates in Atlanta, New York, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Miami and Baltimore to name but a few. Take a look at this recent group shot…
While working on Nicole and Robert’s Q & A piece I did a little research on Guiding Light and found some fun facts I thought you might enjoy as well …
Guiding Light is a Guinness World Record holder for being the longest-running show in broadcast history, 70 years!
Always ahead of the curve, it first debuted on radio in 1937, transitioned to television in 1952 and became the first television show to podcast audio only episodes in 2005.
To date, Guiding Light has aired more than 15,000 episodes on the CBS Television Network and nearly 18,000 episodes overall.
And my favorite — Created by Irna Phillips, Guiding Light was – and continues to be – produced by Procter & Gamble Productions, the company who put the word SOAP in ‘soap opera’.
For those of you who are new to the site and wonder who might have been our past PEOPLE WHO CARE, we’ve implemented a new feature in the top navigation bar that’s called PEOPLE WHO CARE where you can find archived information. As this is only our second consecutive installment, it’s a pretty short list — we want to thank Rene Syler again for sharing a part of her life journey with us during October’s feature highlighting Breast Cancer Awareness. Not only is she an awesome ambassador for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, she’s a bright, witty writer with a very real approach to mothering in today’s hectic, multi-tasking, fast lane of parenting. As a mother who falls into the aforementioned category, I highly suggest picking up a copy of her book Good Enough Mother. While this might sound like a shameless plug for what we do – I’d like you to think of the following instructions more as a tutorial. First, go to SHOP THE MALL, choose BOOKS, MUSIC + MORE from the left hand directory and go to BOOKS. Hers’ is now carried at Barnes & Noble, click on their icon, find the book, buy it and get ready to laugh a lot and cry just a little. While you’re waiting for the book to arrive, go to www.goodenoughmother.com, read her blog, get caught up in the conversation and Share Your GEMstones with other Good Enough Mothers. When you have children, you’ve got GEMstones – trust me on this one.
In this month’s blog, we cover a rather difficult topic – that of rape, sexual abuse and incest. Until we started working on this piece featuring Christina Ricci, the national spokesperson for RAINN (Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network) – the country’s leading anti-sexual assault organization, I wasn’t truly aware of the staggering numbers associated with these heinous crimes, their ongoing psychological effects and where public policy issues currently stand with respect to reporting, prosecuting and DNA testing. I was also sadly ignorant of the wide range of personal violence that often goes hand-in-hand with sexual assault. While disturbing on many levels, the wealth of information available on the RAINN website is an invaluable tool and I hope you’ll take the time to read through and learn from its hugely important messages.
For those of you unfamiliar with autism and its varied spectrum of disorders, take this month to learn more, as April is Autism Awareness Month. Additionally, through a UN resolution passed in 2007, April 2 is now officially World Autism Awareness Day. This UN resolution is one of only three official disease-specific United Nations Days and will bring the world’s attention to autism, a pervasive disorder that affects tens of millions. The World Autism Awareness Day resolution encourages all Member States to take measures to raise awareness about autism throughout society and to encourage early diagnosis and early intervention.
I can’t believe it’s the first of February already – so much is happening here at nonprofitshoppingmall.com that I can’t even begin to cover all the new ground we’ve broken since the holidays in this short blog space. First of all, we actually have two blogs goin’ within this site – this one and another, dedicated to retail promotions, on our shop the mall page. There, you’ll find Valentine’s Day ideas from 
Amazing in a wholly different arena is the work being done by 
There’s no doubt about it – the holidays are upon us and we’re well on our way to counting down to the New Year that lies just ahead. In keeping with the spirit of the season we’d like to welcome Sergeant Harvey Walden to our December 
