Since the first release of the Call of Duty video game in 2003, the game series has received universal acclaim. The ongoing series holds the Guinness World Record as the best-selling games of their kind. In 2009, the game’s publisher Activision Blizzard launched Call of Duty Endowment, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to getting unemployed veterans back to work. They have intensely supported veteran employment efforts and committed to funding the placement of 100,000 vets into high-quality jobs by 2024 through the Call of Duty Endowment.
The Endowment also expanded its support internationally to the United Kingdom in 2017, attempting to help more of those who have served their nation in uniform to find meaningful careers. In addition to supporting its grantees, they committed to highlighting high performance in the veteran employment through its Seal of Distinction program, which provides both a $30,000 prize and national recognition to winners of the award.
Last month the nonprofit reached its goal of placing 100,000 vets two years ahead of schedule. To mark the occasion—and the start of Military Appreciation Month—Activision Blizzard has committed an additional $30 million in funding to support the program moving forward. Over the last twelve years, the Call of Duty Endowment says it has partnered with the most effective nonprofit veterans organizations in both the US and UK to deliver high value job placements, a service most requested by veterans.
They use a performance-driven approach to fund organizations delivering the highest standards of quality and cost-efficient veteran job placement services. Activision Blizzard pays for all the Endowment’s overhead costs and 100% of all donations received go directly to Endowment grantees. Co-chairman General James Jones, a former National Security Advisor and retired US Marine Corps commander said “To put 100,000 placements in perspective, the entire active-duty Marine Corps is made up of more than 178,000 people. While reaching 100,000 placements two years earlier than our goal is an accomplishment to be proud of, there is much more we can and should be doing to support our veterans as they transition to civilian employment.”
Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard and Co-Founder of the Endowment said “To date, we have invested over $60 million in support of veterans employment initiatives. With our even more efficient programs we expect to generate another 50,000 job placements through Call of Duty Endowment grants.” One of the leading charities supported by the grants is VetJobs. Their mission has received funding that led to more than 48,000 of its 77,000 placements. VetJobs CEO Rear Admiral Dan Kloeppel, U.S. Navy (retired) said “There is no better, more supportive resource for veteran job placement than the Call of Duty Endowment,”
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One woman’s quest to find a stranger whose act of kindness years ago has helped shape who she is today, has finally come to an end. Ayda Zugay was an almost 12-year-old refugee fleeing the former Yugoslavia with her 17 year old sister when a stranger handed them the envelope on a flight to the United States in 1999. The woman made them promise not to open it until they got off the plane. Inside, the girls found dangly earrings and a $100 bill. A note in the envelope said “I am so sorry that the bombing of your country has caused your family any problems. I hope your stay in America will be a safe and happy one for you — Welcome to America — please use this to help you here. A friend from the plane — TRACY ”
Zugay says that money helped feed them for an entire summer. The two girls scraped by staying with their brother, who was a college student in Iowa at the time. And it’s still shaping the way both sisters live their lives 23 years later. She still remembers how she felt the first time she read the message on the envelope and how the word “safe” was underlined. “It was the first time that I felt, like, relief. This is a safe place, and we can build a future here,” she says. “I think that’s why the letter really resonated with me at that time, because we went from like this drastic horror into this beautiful act of kindness” she said.
Every year, on the anniversary of her arrival in the US, Zugay renewed her search to find her. Recently, Zugay’s video searching for Tracy was shared by Refugees International’s Twitter page and it went viral. She shared clues in the video such as “Tracy” was traveling with a friend and they both appeared to be in their late 30s or early 40s. One was a brunette with a ponytail and the other had mid-length blonde hair. Both women toted tennis rackets and they both spoke about playing tennis in Paris. She believed they may have lived in Minnesota, possibly within a few hours of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. The flight they met on was from Amsterdam to Minnesota on May 31, 1999.
Her years-long search finally came to an end when Tracy Peck, a 70-year-old massage therapist living in Minneapolis received a series of texts and calls — first from her tennis coach, then from her best friend. “Have you seen the CNN story?” both of them asked. “That has to be you.” Peck had no idea what they were talking about but she pulled over and opened the link they’d sent. A picture of a letter popped onto Peck’s iPhone screen. As soon as she saw it, she says, memories from a plane ride 23 years ago came rushing back and how frightened the sisters seemed. She said they reminded her of her own daughters and their experience fleeing war was heartbreaking, unlike anything she’d ever dealt with.
She cried as she read how the gift had changed their lives. With the help of friends and family with a whirlwind of tweets, emails and texts- less than a day later, Peck and the sisters reunited on an emotional Zoom call. Peck said she’s forever changed by hearing this latest chapter in their story. “It warms my heart beyond anything I’ve ever experienced in my life,” she said. Peck says she’d worked to teach her children to be kind, telling them you never know how your actions might affect others but she never imagined she’d experience such a stunning example of how truly important an act of kindness can be.
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If you ever needed a reason to skip mowing the lawn, saving the bees seems a commendable reason. No Mow May, is a movement that began in the United Kingdom and is now rapidly spreading throughout the United States. The Bee population has been dwindling which is not good for our ecological system. No Mow May’s popularity lies in its simplicity: Just give bees a leg up during the crucial springtime by crossing a chore off your list and letting your lawn grow for the month of May.
In North America, a quarter of our native bee species are at risk of extinction. Bees pollinate 35 percent of our global food supply, and many of the wild plants our ecosystems depend on. Backyard bee conservation is all the buzz these days, with people planting native pollinator gardens, installing bee houses, and participating in citizen science endeavors to monitor local bee populations.
Letting your lawn grow lets “lawn flowers,” such as dandelions, clover, and violets, bloom at a time when bee food is scarce. In many communities, grass height is limited to eight or 10 inches, but those that have adopted No Mow May will suspend enforcement of these restrictions for the month. If this is the case in your community, make sure to cut your grass at the end of the month.
Yard signs are also helpful for informing others that your wild lawn means that you’re helping the bees and are not a neglectful homeowner. Many communities that adopt No Mow May, such as Appleton, Wisconsin, and Edina, Minnesota, provide free yard signs. Dr. Israel Del Toro, one of the originators of the US No Mow May movement said “To avoid misunderstandings, talk to your neighbor; talk to your community; get the word out about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and generally you’ll find a lot of good allies.”
If you’re unsure whether your community has adopted No Mow May you can call your city or homeowners association to determine what rules are in place. If your community hasn’t adopted No Mow May, but you still want to participate, try laying off the mower until your grass reaches your community’s maximum allowed grass height. This will allow flowers to bloom for at least a little while.
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Tongai Matandirotya, a bartender turned hero, who works at Brass Bell Restaurant near Cape Town South Africa left behind any thoughts of his own safety to dive into the cold Atlantic ocean to rescue a mother and daughter swept off the pier by a rogue wave. It was a relatively calm day and several people were walking by the window of Brass Bells looking out to the water when a huge wave came over the harbor and pulled them into the ocean.
Clair Gardiner and her 8-year-old daughter Arya van Hilten were two of the people swept away. Gardiner knew they were being pulled into the water as soon as the wave rushed over them, and she managed to wrap her arms around little Arya. Matandirotya saw it happen and dropped the drink he was pouring, ran outside and dove into the cold Atlantic Ocean.
The ferocity of the waves had pulled Gardiner and Arya apart. Matandirotya used his belt to rescue Arya who wasn’t able to stay afloat by herself. Gardiner said she went back to the restaurant to thank him “I didn’t know who saved us but my daughter recognized him immediately, and we all embraced each other. We are so thankful to Tongai and the tourist man who risked their lives to save ours; we’ll forever be grateful to them.”
Matandirotya, along with another man, also saved Angela Campbell, 75, who was also swept away that day while taking a stroll with her family. “I looked around and realized I was in the water. I panicked! Eventually, I managed to turn over, but I then started sinking. I remember talking to myself, saying ‘God make it quick, I’m scared’. Campbell said that besides her life being saved, she was more thankful that her grandson was not in the buggy that she was pushing when the wave hit her.
Matandirotya told news outlets he dove in because he saw a child (Aryna) go in and he has a very soft spot for kids and his instinct to help just kicked in. Brass Bell restaurant spokesperson Ethan Govender said the staff and management team were impressed by Matandirotya’s bravery. “We applaud him for his braveness in jumping into action to save those that fell into the ocean. Tongai is a wonderful, loveable, fun human being. His character speaks volumes, and we are immensely proud of the risk he took in saving lives.”
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California leads the nation in food production, which requires a lot of water and new water restrictions issued for millions of residents of Southern California highlighted the need to make agriculture more efficient. A new statewide composting mandate is providing the solution. They became the second state in the nation after Vermont to make large-scale composting required by law.
Food waste makes up nearly 20% of the stuff in our landfills. When that food decomposes, it releases methane; tens of times more potent than carbon dioxide, it’s one of the main greenhouse gasses fueling the climate crisis, and landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions in the U.S.
More than 200 cities across the country, and many universities, have followed San Francisco’s lead and implemented curbside collection of food scraps for composting. In compliance with the new law—(SB 1383) requiring California cities to reduce landfilling of compostable materials by 75 percent by 2025—cities up and down California are establishing curbside programs that provide bins for food scraps, sticks, and leaves, so they can be turned into ‘black gold’ compost for farmers.
City composting programs produce thousands of truckloads of finished compost that go onto farms, orchards, and vineyards, creating a natural sponge that attracts and retains moisture. When citizens dump their coffee grounds and banana peels into a bin for pick up, they are feeding the soil, while guarding against water shortages and farms can grow up to 40 percent more food in times of drought when they use compost.
San Francisco’s pioneering food scrap collection program, which was labeled as something that would never work, created momentum for the statewide program. That citywide green-bin program has diverted 2.5 million tons of compostable material from the landfill, which not only saved landfill space and eliminated thousands of tons of methane emissions, but also helped local farms grow more healthy food, using less water and less fertilizer.
Delegations from 135 counties have traveled to San Francisco to view this program firsthand, which was implemented later at UC Berkeley and UC Davis, in Marin County and 11 cities in San Mateo County. Other cities adopting the trend—Portland, Seattle, Denver and Boulder, St. Paul and Minneapolis, Baltimore, Anchorage, Eugene, Cambridge, and Ann Arbor, Michigan—proving the program is a WIN for landfills, farmers, and the planet.
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A 12 year old British boy’s woodworking project went viral so he seized the opportunity to raise money for the children of Ukraine through Save the Children. Richard Clarkie knows of his son Gabriel’s love for woodwork and decided to post a tweet to encourage others to order his son’s creations. The proud father posted a link to his son’s hobby of carving wooden bowls and posting them for sale on Instagram.
Richard’s tweet read “Lovely twitter people – I don’t know how many of you are also #instagram users but I’m looking for a wee favor. I’ve a 12yr old who loves woodwork. He spends hours on his lathe making bowls and creating chopping boards which he sells to save up for a mountain bike. So I was wondering if any of you fancied giving him a boost and following him on instagram at clarkie_woodwork it would make his day. Thanks in advance and feel free to retweet!”
Neither of them expected much from the tweet, and they certainly didn’t expect Clarkie’s Instagram account to grow from a modest 6 followers to 227,000 in just 48 hours. Gabriel, who lives in Cumbria in northern England, quickly received 20,000 orders. But rather than fulfilling so many orders, he decided to make just a single bowl. To symbolize the Ukrainian Flag, the wooden bowl was etched with blue and yellow rings.
Clarkie Woodwork——announced Gabrial would make one single bowl, Gabriel’s Bowl For Ukraine, to be given out in a lottery to anyone who makes a donation to Save The Children Ukraine. His instagram page went viral again and with a little help from celebrity retweets by the likes of J.K Rowling, Nick Offerman and Stephen Fry. The $6,260 donation quickly grew to $325,000 with nearly 15,000 people donating.
The lucky winner was Renuka Chapman who said “When Gabriel rang me to let me know I’d won the bowl, I was completely overwhelmed— I’ve never won a single thing before! This bowl will be one of my most treasured possessions. It represents hope, compassion, and kindness… It will have pride of place in my home.” Richard Clarkie said “I never imagined that my tweet would turn into this amazing thing… Somehow, it’s resulted in people donating over $325,000 to help children in Ukraine, it’s just incredible!”
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Henry Richard, the brother of the youngest victim in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, has completed the Boston Marathon in honor of his brother. He was emotional as he completed his first Boston Marathon. As he neared the end of the race, an emotional Richard stopped at the Boston Marathon memorial on Boylston Street for several moments. He then turned and ran to the finish, pumping both fists in the air as he crossed the line.
Henry ran with Team MR8, to raise money for the Martin Richard Foundation, which promotes inclusion, kindness, and peace in Martin’s legacy. The foundation invests in community programs that broaden horizons for young people and encourage them to celebrate diversity and engage in positive civic action.
Henry was 10 years old when his 8-year-old brother Martin was one of three people killed that day. Hundreds of people were injured that day including his 6 year old sister Jane who lost her left leg in the bombing. Jane survived that day after Matthew Patterson, from Lynn Fire Department, grabbed a stranger’s belt and made a tourniquet for her. Patterson then lifted her into his arms and raced through the devastation carrying her with her father, Bill Richard, by his side.
His sister, Jane, his parents and other family members were there at the finish line. “It’s great to get here finally. It’s been years in the making for me so I’m just so happy I could finally be here. I know Martin would have been doing it with me — so happy to finish it, that’s all I can think about. So many people were out there for me, all my friends, my family. Motivation was the least of my worries. There were so many people there to support me. It was wonderful and I couldn’t believe it. It meant the world to me that they were here waiting.” Henry said.
Finishing the Boston Marathon is an incredible achievement by itself, but crossing the finish line meant even more to Henry Richard. It also brought back a lot of emotions for the entire Richard family. Henry plans on running the marathon again in the future. “I love this city and I couldn’t be more grateful to them and everything they’ve done for me,” he said.
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When a Georgia teen learned that babies staying in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU) only received two hours a day with their parents during the pandemic, she knew she wanted to help provide some extra comfort to the infants. Bryn Hammock, 18, a Girl Scout since she was in kindergarten, had been looking for an inspiring project to help her earn the Gold Award, the organization’s highest honor, and knew helping NICU babies was the right choice.
Hammock’s grandmother, a pediatric nurse, told her about hand-shaped gloves filled with beads often placed with NICU babies, so the infants feel like their mothers are holding them. Preemies in the neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) need a touch from mom or dad, but when parents can’t be there, “Tiny Hugs” are a good substitute.
The soft, snuggly mittens, weighted inside with a pound of poly bead stuffing, are used to help these early arrivals feel like they’re still in the womb. Mothers are asked to wear the glove close to their own bodies so the fabric will retain her unique smell, which is calming to an infant. And the weighted hands are also helpful for holding tubes and assorted wires in the hospital.
Some hospitals in the Atlanta area had the gloves, but the facilities near Bryn were looking for more. Despite not knowing how to sew and the lockdown just starting, Hammock set her sights on helping the NICU babies. She raised funds for all of the sewing supplies and created a pattern for the stuffed gloves — which she calls Tiny Hugs.
Hammock spent a year learning to sew and gathering a team to make weighted mittens. The teen crafted several Tiny Hugs herself and with her mom’s help, created a how-to video so that a team of 18 volunteers could help make even more. The volunteer team planned to make 30 Tiny Hugs but ended up sewing 140. Bryn distributed the gloves to seven Georgia hospitals, including the one where she was born.
Bryn received several thank you letters from hospitals that received her team’s Tiny Hugs and the project earned her the Girl Scouts’ Gold Award. Bryn says “It felt really good to earn the award doing this. I’m the third generation girl scout and the third in my family to do it. I love babies and kids, so this was just a perfect project for me. It felt really good.” The high school senior will head to Auburn University in the fall and plans to do something in the medical field.
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Stefany Bibb, a teacher at John F. Kennedy Montessori Elementary School in Louisville started the “Kindness Crew” to combat the Monday morning blues. The group lines the entrance of the school every Monday to help cheer up students. With something as simple as a morning greeting and kind words, they hope to change the direction of someone’s day.
Students in the Kindness Crew often hold the door for others, greet students and teachers each morning with posters that have positive messages, focus on being helpful and respectful, and help others to remember to be kind. Every month, the ‘Kindness Crew’ also chooses an act of kindness to perform somewhere in the community. Bibb hopes these students take the foundation of kindness they’ve started at Kennedy Montessori and continue to build upon it in the future.
During spring break, Bibb and several students in the Kindness Crew created a rock garden outside of the school’s building of painted rocks with messages of kindness or happy designs.
Students can keep the rocks for up to one week before returning them to the garden. If students choose to keep the rock longer, they can paint another one and replace the one they took.
Bibb said kids genuinely have a kind heart and she just wants them to keep it. “Nothing you’ve heard from any of the students, nothing they do, is because of me. I just gave them the outlet to do what they naturally do. They’re naturally kind. There’s nothing I can take credit for, for how amazing they are and the kindness they spread. I’m just like, ‘Here, do what you do’” Bibb said.
John F. Kennedy Montessori Elementary was one of seven schools recognized for best practices during the 2021 Continuous Improvement Summit for the Kindness Crew. Each winner was presented with a $500 check that can be used toward school improvement.
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An Iowa woman, Alli Marois, 23, was overwhelmed with the response when she posted a video on TikTok asking for help for a project. Her father, Bill Collins, had recently retired from the Des Moines Fire Department in September after 38 years. She wanted to make a special birthday gift for his 61st birthday coming up in August and turned to TikTok to make it happen.
In her video that she posted in February, she explained that she wanted to make a quilt from shirts featuring logos of fire stations all across the U.S. She said “ He really is passionate about being a firefighter. That’s the one thing that he’s loved. If someone was born to do something, my dad was born to be a firefighter. My dad is one of my number one supporters and he … he is really one of the best men in my life and I wouldn’t trade him for anything.”
Marois said throughout her childhood, whenever her family traveled, her father would get a T-shirt from the local fire department. Since he hasn’t had the chance to visit all 50 states, she realized a quilt would be a great gift. She had written letters to fire departments but had not received shirts from all 50 states before turning to TikTok with her plea. “So firefighters of TikTok, I’m asking you for your help to please send me a shirt from your state,” Marois said in her video. “I would love all of you to be a part of this journey.”
Marois has since received T-shirts from all 50 states and more. She has 100 shirts and counting, including a few from overseas fire departments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Along with the shirts, Alli Marois has received handwritten letters from firefighters and from widows of firefighters who died on 9/11. She said “As soon as all of these shirts started to come in, I got very emotional because people are helping someone they don’t even know. They’ve never met me, they’ve never even talked to me.”
She posted a video update, that she is now in the process of cutting the shirts to make the quilt. She added that she will post a reveal video when the quilt is finished and presented to her father. Marois has received a lot of attention online, which meant she couldn’t keep the entire project a secret from Collins. She said some aspects are still a mystery, he hasn’t seen all the shirts so he won’t know what it’s going to look like and he has not read the letters. Marois says it has been a “heartwarming” and “very humbling experience.”
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