Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 9 (March 2010). Rosa Loves By Katrina "We are everyday people aware of a need in our community. We realize that we are capable of performing tangible acts of service that will meet individual and immediate needs in order to affect wide scale encouragement. Rosa Loves is an example, an inspiration, and will serve as a possible backbone to many more grassroots "love projects" around the world." Rosa Loves takes a different approach than...
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Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 8 (February 2010). Médecins Sans Frontières By Jessie (Asylum) Doctors Without Borders, known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF, is a non-governmental medical humanitarian organization. MSF was created in 1971 by a group of French doctors with the belief that all people have a right to medical care and that this right supersedes race, religion or political affiliation. "MSF sets out to alleviate human suffering, to protect...
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Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 7 (January 2010). The March of Dimes By Katrina January, the start of the new year, is Birth Defects month. In lieu of this, we have chosen The March of Dimes as our January Cause of the Month. The March of Dimes, an organization that has made many notable accomplishments since it's founding, fights to prevent and raise awareness about three main things: birth defects, premature births, and infant immortality. The March of Dimes actually began...
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Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 10 (April 2010). Locks of Love By Katrina We've all seen our friends have their curly, golden long hair chopped off at some point before. Sometimes, we hear them mention that they're donating it to "Locks of Love." Do you know what Locks of Love is really all about, though? While this organization isn't our typical monthly cause, we wanted to share just a snippet of the great things Locks of Love accomplishes each and every day. Locks of...
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Volunteering at the Ronald McDonald House By Emma (Golfing girl) The Ronald McDonald House is a place where families can stay when a baby, child or teenager is very sick and needs a lot of treatment to help save them. This house is next to the hospital so everyone can be close to the family member who is hospitalized. This is a place you can call home because you need a place to stay for a while. It is a huge house with a lot of rooms to stay in, laundry rooms, and a dining room for...

The Water Project by Katrina (AppleTini) We all know how important water is, and that it's the most vital resource for survival. This month, I wanted to share with you a cause that can help you give someone an important gift - water. The Water Project is actually focused on bringing clean water to India and Africa, and is a fantastic way to help get the world hydrated! With a donation as small as $10.00, you can give someone the gift of water for ten years! The Water Project focuses...

Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation By Katrina (AppleTini) Meet Alexandra Scott, daughter of Liz and Jay Scott, born in 1996; this year, Alex would be fourteen years old. When Alex was less than a year old, she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a form of childhood cancer. Though Alex's parents were told she'd never be able to walk, she fought this prediction and slowly but surely learned to walk with leg braces by the age of two, and continued to work until she was able to walk without...

Keep a Child Alive By Katrina (AppleTini) With HIV/AIDS so prominent around the globe, particularly in India and Africa, with a succesful cure still not recorded, there are many organizations fighting for the cure through educating and raising awareness about the causes of HIV/AIDS, donating money and time to finding the cure, and doing many more remarkable things to ensure that the future will not have to battle with HIV/AIDS as the past and the present has had to. One such...

Starlight Children's Foundation By Katrina (AppleTini) If there's one thing I've noticed about people in general, it's that so many of us seem to have a heart for helping children. No matter what sex, color, religion, orientation, or anything else we may be, a common goal seems to be to empower the leaders of tomorrow to reach their goals and dreams. For some children, reaching goals and catching dreams may be more difficult than it is for others. The Starlight Children's Foundation, for...

Cause of the Month: Pencils of Promise By Katrina (AppleTini) As we gear up for the new school year, Pencils of Promise is hitting its prime season for helping children across the globe. "Pencils of Promise partners with local communities to build schools and increase educational opportunities in the developing world. We focus on early education, high potential females and empowering a new generation of passionate young leaders to create profound good." Less than two years ago, founder Adam...

Spread the Word to End the Word By Britt (Aspire.) What is an Intellectual Disability? An intellectual disability develops before the age of eighteen, and is defined as limitations in both intellectual functioning and adapting to everyday life. Typically someone with an intellectual disability has an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 70 or below, which is tested by using intelligence tests such as the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler Scales. Along with a low IQ, an individual will typically have...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 4, Issue 2 (August 2010). Dizzy Feet Foundation By Katrina (AppleTini) Less than a year ago, So You Think You Can Dance producer Nigel Lythgoe shocked viewers around the world with an exciting piece of news: an organization co-founded by Lythgoe, producer Adam Shankman, judge of Dancing With the Stars, Carrie Ann Inaba, and actress Katie Holmes. This organization, of course, was not just randomly announced on So You Think You Can Dance for no reason....

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 4, Issue 1 (July 2010). Vitamin Angels By Katrina How many times have you heard Mom or Dad say, "Alright, be sure to take your vitamins!" More than you can count? Yeah, me too. They don't say it for no reason, though. Specific vitamins are vital for immune systems; without them, we wouldn't be able to fight off infections and would always be sick. Vitamin Angels understands the importance of vitamins to children and infants: "Our mission is to...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 12 (June 2010). Faceless International by Katrina No matter who you are, you are blessed with talents that you sometimes don't even know about. This month, I challenge you to look past who you are, on the outside. I challenge you to look within, even if it's just a little bit. Try to find your own talents and your own callings, and think creatively about how you can make a difference! One of my favorite organizations, Faceless International,...