826CHI update & a martian jellyfish!

Thanks to a donation from Ticketmaster, we’ve raised $2,040 for 826CHI, Living Philanthropic’s Featured Charity for April. I truly admire the work that they do to make reading and writing fun for kids. If you would like to help 826CHI do more excellent work, consider joining the team and pledging your support: http://www.crowdrise.com/LP-826CHI

And now story time courtesy of the 2nd Grade Class at Wicker Elementary in Chicago!

The Story of Lary Snakefish, the Martian Jellyfish

Once upon a time lived a Martian jellyfish named Lary Snakefish. He had dragon wings and was orange with blue and yellow polka dots. He lived in a seaweed house in Jellyfish Ocean on Mars. Lary was no ordinary jellyfish. All the jellyfish on Mars had dragon wings, but Lary had the special ability to breathe fire.

Every morning, Lary would wake up feeling super grouchy because he hated waking up in the morning. He would go and drink some of his favorite jell-o coffee with a side of cranberry juice. Then he would put on his jellyfish hat and gracefully float to work.

Lary worked at the library. His favorite thing to do in the whole wide world was to read. He liked to read books about dragons, baking, dolphins, and Power Rangers. The only problem was that everyone in the library hated when Lary worked because he breathed fire, so he would sometimes burn the books.

One day, the head librarian, Mrs. Seahorse, who was surprisingly an elephant, came up to Lary and said, “Lary, you keep burning all of the books. I’m going to have to fire you.”

Lary replied, “I understand. I’m so sorry. Could I pay for the books?”

“Yes, but the books are really really expensive! You burned 100 books so you will need to pay a trillion dollars!” said Mrs. Seahorse.

Since Lary no longer had a job, because he got fired from being a librarian, he had no idea how he was going to earn a trillion Martian dollars.

“Oh no!” said Lary, “What am I going to do?” 

Read more stories at 826CHI’s Writing Gallery: http://www.826chi.org/writing_gallery

Bottom Line’s Annual Get In, Graduate and Go Far Dinner

If you are in the Boston area, please consider attending Bottom Line’s Annual Get In, Graduate and Go Far Dinner. 

The annual Get In, Graduate, and Go Far Dinner has become one of the most inspiring nights on the Bottom Line calendar. A combination of incredible student stories and compelling speeches from community leaders make this a can’t-miss event. The Dinner also features live and silent auctions. Below is information about this upcoming event:

2012 Get In, Graduate, Go Far Dinner
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
6:00pm Reception, Silent Auction
7:00pm Program, Dinner, Live Auction
Westin Copley Place Hotel, 10 Huntington Ave, Boston
With speaker Gloria Larson (Bentley University) and honoree Carl Dalstrom (USA Funds)
Buy your ticket»>

To learn more about the live and silent auctions and their item donation opportunities, please contact Alyssa Mazzarella at alyssa@bottomline.org or 617-524-8833.

To learn more about Bottom Line’s annual dinner and our sponsorship opportunities, please contact Ishara Casellas-Katz at ishara@bottomline.org or 617-524-8833.

Bottom Line is Living Philanthropic’s featured charity for March 2012. Join the team at Crowdrise.com/lp-mar12

Bottom Line (@bottomlineinc) Success Story: Javier Hernandez

Javier is a student in Bottom Line’s College Success Program and a graduating senior at UMass Boston. He gave this speech at Bottom Line’s 2011 Get In, Graduate, and Go Far Dinner.Visit bottomline.org to learn more.

Bottom Line is Living Philanthropic’s featured charity for March 2012. Join the team at Crowdrise.com/lp-mar12

Want to be a guest blogger on Living Philanthropic?
Join the team and donate on this page & submit your blog post about why you made a contribution here: http://bit.ly/lp-blogger

Bottom Line (@bottomlineinc) Success Story: Marian Younge

Marian is a participant in Bottom Line’s College Success Program and a student at Tufts University. She gave this speech at Bottom Line’s 2011 Get In, Graduate, and Go Far Dinner. Visit bottomline.org to learn more.

Bottom Line is Living Philanthropic’s featured charity for March 2012. Join the team at Crowdrise.com/lp-mar12

Want to be a guest blogger on Living Philanthropic?
Join the team and donate on this page & submit your blog post about why you made a contribution here: http://bit.ly/lp-blogger

March 2012 Featured Charity: Bottom Line

My mother worked so hard to ensure my five sisters and I attended college. She knew that obtaining a college degree would be an important step in our careers and improve our placement in life. Taking a cue from my mother’s wisdom, I believe in the power of education to improve our future. This is one of motivating factors for much of my philanthropic work, from the literacy programs at 826CHI and Literacy Works, to the school building and scholarship programs of Foundation Escalera to this month’s feautured charity Bottom Line, you can begin to see a pattern in my giving. Education is power.

This month marks the 12th featured charity of the Living Philanthropic Year 2, at the end of this month it will mark 2 years of Living Philanthropic, which begs the question what shall we do for Year 3?

Bottom Line is dedicated to helping disadvantaged students get in to college, graduate from college, and go far in life. They achieve this mission by providing low-income and first-generation students with one-on-one guidance through the application process and during college. Since 1997, 74% of Bottom Line college students have graduated within 6 years. Currently, Bottom Line is providing mentoring and support to more than 1,900 students from our offices in Boston, MA; Worcester, MA; and New York City, NY.

Please join Team Living Philanthropic with a contribution and help us meet the $1,000 match from LiveNation, please visit: http://www.crowdrise.com/lp-mar12

Want to be a guest blogger on Living Philanthropic?
Join the team and donate on this page & submit your blog post about why you made a contribution here: http://bit.ly/lp-blogger

Living Philanthropic was founded in April 2010 as one man’s mission to give to charity everyday for a year. This mission is built on a belief that you don’t have to be rich in dollars to make a difference; you only need to be rich in spirit. After completing his 365 day mission, the spirit of giving everyday carries on through his friends and in his mission to continue his micro-philanthropy for a second year. For more information, please visit: www.livingphilanthropic.com

Today (Feb 22) is my birthday and my only wish today is to share my love for Foundation Escalera and the work they do with you.  This past Christmas break, I went on my second school building expedition with Foundation Escalera. (You can read about it here.)

Please take a moment and watch the video above, it’s a snippet from the expedition video and in it I talk about the stove project and it’s importance to improving health and education. Your donations along with the donations from Live Nation/Ticketmaster last year paid for 18 of the 40 stoves we installed in December in Nichnamtic. 

If you would like to help me celebrate my birthday (you are too kind!), all I am asking for is one of 3 things, pick and choose what you’d like to do.

1.) Like Foundation Escalera on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/escalerafund 

or better yet Take the Pledge to stand with Students without Schools
http://www.causes.com/causes/635109-build-a-school-in-mexico/actions/1592345

2.) Share this video with friends on your facebook page and help me spread the word about the work Foundation Escalera is doing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAdQOHbnWk4 

3.) Consider a small donation to help us do more to improve education for students without schools: http://www.crowdrise.com/stoves 

Thank you for all the support and kind wishes over the past 2 years. You are simply the best people I know!

Nichnamtic Expedition Update

LIOTE! [leo-tay] That’s Tzotzil for Hello!

Happy New Year Everyone! I’m excited to back in Chicago, I had an amazing trip to Chiapas, Mexico over Christmas break. It was a truly wonderful experience.

To provide a quick wrap up, we built a 6 classroom school house plus a basketball, and installed 40 wood burning stoves in the homes of those most in need in the village of Nichnamtic. 

I spent most of my time working on the stove project this year, because it allowed me more time to meet with the people of Nichnamtic, to get to know them, to learn about how they live, work, cook, and eat.

The stove project was especially dear to me, my fundraising efforts and some of your donations covered the cost for 18 of the 40 stoves! So, I wanted to make sure they were installed properly, that the women knew how they worked and would put them to good use. 

So, why install stoves? In most of the homes, the cooking is done over an open fire pit which tends to fill the kitchen or living space with smoke and carbon monoxide. This slow carbon monoxide poisoning can have a great effect on the development and health of the families and children in the home. Learning disabilities and respiratory problems can have an adverse effect on student’s abilities to concentrate and learn in school. The hope is that the mother’s will use the new stoves that vent the smoke out of the house or kitchens. 

Will it work? My host family Crescencia (23) and Pedro (24) live on a very small plot of land with a humble living space and separate kitchen. They have 3 children Freddy, Juan David, and Irma. They lived in the States for one year before moving back to their home in Nichnamtic. Pedro’s work consists of migrating to Northern Mexico from March to November to cut calabazas (squash) for 40-50 pesos a day. That’s about $3-4 US dollars a day. The winter months are definitely the hardest, as it is too cold for their small crops, so money and food is tight. When I first arrived, their second oldest Juan David (2) was following his mother around as she would prepare food or coffee. The first thing I noticed was the smoke in the kitchen and Juan David’s pronounced cough, it sounded pretty bad, aggravated by the smoke. 

This is a very common scene across Chiapas, children spend their time with their mother when not in school, gathering wood, watching their mother’s cook, breathing in smoke. My team and I installed our stove, Pedro actually moved their big fire pit that they were using for cooking outside! That was a good sign! We came back later that night after installing more stoves and Pedro was happy to make room for us to sleep on the concrete floor of their house. 

The next morning, I spent some quality time with Pedro learning about his life, his family, his work, his land. Meanwhile, Crescencia used the new stove to make us coffee and handmade tortillas, a good sign that she would continue to use the stove. On the last day, the poignant moment for me was noticing how the new stove was already helping Juan David, as we sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and eating tortillas, this little guy did not cough once! I knew in that moment, that this project would have a simple, yet profound effect. 

By the end of our expedition, the school was built and all forty stoves were installed and I was extremely proud of the team and work we accomplished together, over 60 volunteers from the US and 40+ volunteers in Chiapas came together for a great cause. 

I want to thank Ticketmaster, Live Nation, Anonymous donor Cyper for their $1,000 donations, and every donor who helped fund this expedition! You are amazing and your contributions made an impact!

If you would like to help fund a stove, please visit: http://crowdrise.com/stoves or if you would like to fund a future school build, please visit: http://www.crowdrise.com/LP-DEC

For more information about Foundation Escalera, please visit: http://foundationescalera.org/landing.html

For more photos, check out the Living Philanthropic page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/livingphilanthropic

Meet Esperanza from Nichnamtic. She is one of the 200 students that will benefit from the new school we’re building this month in her village. Watch this video to learn more about her challenges and newfound opportunities through education.

Pledge your support for Team Living Philanthropic at: http://crowdrise.com/lp-dec