History was made when Habitat for Humanity handed over the keys to their first 3D printed home on the East Coast. With lumber prices high, they saved an estimated 15% per square foot compared to their normal building costs. Four days before Christmas, April Stringfield and her 13 year old son cut the ribbon on a three-bedroom, two-bath house she helped build in Williamsburg, Virginia.
The 1,200 square-foot house featuring 2 full bathrooms uses concrete, which retains temperature better than wood, and will save on heating and cooling costs. It’s also more resistant to tornado and hurricane damage. The entire skeleton was built in just 12 hours, shaving off around 4 weeks of building time. Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg teamed up with 3D printing home construction company Alquist in order to complete the project.
There is even a miniature 3D printer that comes with the house that could reprint parts like light switch covers, if she needs a repair. The addition of solar panels and a smart home system based on proprietary technology from Virginia Tech will ensure April and her son enjoy low energy costs while still maintaining comfort.
Habitat for Humanity sells homes to families with low to moderate incomes, issuing a no-interest, 20 or 30-year mortgage that the new home-owners then pay off monthly. The Habitat Homebuyer Program becomes available to people who volunteer more than 300 hours of service, and who make 45-80% of an area’s median income. Stringfield logged her 300 sweat equity hours helping build her home and other homes.
James City County’s Neighborhood Development Administrator Vaughn Poller said “I’m really excited about the opportunity to be a part of this technology in housing and being on the cutting edge there,” Poller said. “But none of this would have happened without partnerships, that’s what’s really vital.” Alquist CEO Zachary Mannheimer said “We saw four years of blood, sweat and tears trying to do this.” The business’s future projects include 3D-printed homes in rural communities in Arkansas, California, Iowa, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and other cities.
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The city of Akron, Ohio, launched a program designed to help support the local businesses. The program rewards shoppers for shopping locally through a city-sponsored app called Akronite, from which shoppers receive reward points for every purchase they make. James Hardy, Akron’s deputy mayor of integrated development, says that the app is “encouraging citizens to spend money locally while putting cash back into their pockets.”
The reward points are called “blimps” after the Goodyear Blimp, which is based in Akron. Blimps can be redeemed at any of the participating stores for discounted or even free services. At the end of the month, the city reimburses the businesses for these redeemed values. The more you shop, the more rewards you earn.
Michael Mazur, vice president of business development at Colu, the entity responsible for building the app used to run Akronite, says that constantly rewarding people for doing something they were going to do anyway makes them want to come back for more. He also says that collecting rewards becomes a conversation point among social circles, and that “it becomes a game, a friendly competition.”
While shoppers enjoy the savings, the main goal is to support local business owners by creating loyalty and giving them a new way of attracting new customers. Business owners get to announce events and promotions in the app as well. Since the launch of the app, businesses are reporting that regular customers are visiting more frequently and spending more money.
In addition to this, the app is designed to accommodate advertising space for nonprofits so that their stories can reach their target audiences. There are plans to add ways to reward front-line workers, disabled merchants, and other underprivileged communities who need the support. The success of the app in Akron inspired the Colu team to expand the initiative to include other cities such as Youngstown, Oh, Boston, MA and several regions in California.
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A young man from Zimbabwe is replicating his experience for talented students in his home country—launching their academic journeys into schools like Northwestern and Stanford. Like many young Zimbabweans, Eric Khumalo didn’t have a lot of options, even for a curious mind like his. He found a breakthrough moment, however, in a U.S.-sponsored school near his home town of Bulawayo.
A fascination with coding grew and because of his background in teaching-so did the desire to share the knowledge. He started Emzini WeCode, an education program that has grown from teaching locals in Zimbabwe classrooms at the American embassy to hosting online classes for more than 1,000 students. “I graduated high school in 2018, and within the government there was a shortage of STEM teachers, so I applied for a year and a half. I taught at three high schools and got accepted into UC Berkeley on a scholarship from the Mastercard Foundation” Khumalo said.
Khumalo said he started out studying chemistry but it was the chance encounter with the fabled “good professor” that launched his computer science journey. “I was just like asking questions, and then he told me just about his journey, about how when he was a kid he learned to code; he would make games, and for me I just admired the wonderful things he could accomplish with just code,” says Khumalo. “I found it interesting—this power to create, and this power to solve problems, or if you have a solution—scaling it is possible with computer science.”
Despite the popularity of his classes, he has kept them free, or as cheap as possible, covering only the costs of buying the data necessary to stream in the teachers from local and U.S. universities. “Usually, like two U.S. dollars a month,” says Khumalo. “The group that I usually target most is people who I know are facing challenges in the community.” His focus is broad in scope, avoiding a strict focus on any particular coding language, and opting instead to inspire students to see computer science and coding as a way to solve problems, in whichever career they focus on.
Khumalo feels a sense of pride that keeps him motivated when he sees the students taking his course moving on to other schools and other careers. “If one of my students can get into Stanford, then ten of my students should get into Stanford,” he said smiling. He wants to expand the opportunities he gave to them to more people, and he’s currently designing a computer science curriculum for high schools.
“The main problem I wanted to tackle was job creation,” explains Khumalo, whose January classes are now open for enrolment online for 1,000 students. “I have a vision that local universities here, have young people skilled with world-class knowledge getting hired to solve some of the problems that we have here.”
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Retired U.S. Marine, Shawn Triplett, started a GoFundMe after witnessing a devastating interaction with a mom and her child after they were displaced by the tornadoes. Triplett works as a volunteer at a local elementary school and was recently helping out at a church shelter when he saw the mother and her young child after the storms. The sadness of the moment lingered with him.
Triplett said “I saw a child, no older than 6 years old, crying in his mother’s arms. She was crying too, but you could tell she was doing her best to look strong,” he recalls. “The boy told his mom, ‘I’ve lost my Christmas.’ It was at that moment that I broke down and had to walk outside. It gut-punched me and hurt, I felt actual pain at that moment. I tried to sleep that night but I couldn’t. The pain in that kid’s voice broke me in half. I had to do something about it.”
After taking the night to think about how he could help he decided to ask friends and family to donate money so he could buy toys for the children who were impacted. He said “I was going to give them back their Christmas. That was my mission,” he explains. “There was so much support in the community for water, generators and food, but nobody was thinking about the kids. At least, not in the way it should be, so close to Christmas.”
“The reality is that most of these families were already living in low-income housing. Most had probably never had a ‘great’ Christmas. Most of the kids’ families were already on a strapped budget,” he adds. “Now their house is gone, the parents’ jobs are gone, their parent or parents might be gone, school friends… It just made me focus on the task that much more.”
Triplett launched a GoFundMe page to help purchase holiday gifts for the children, which quickly spread on Reddit, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Since launching the page, he has raised over $92,000. Triplett partnered with the local Walmart, which has agreed to provide a 25% discount on all purchases for the endeavor.
Triplett said the support has been unreal. “It started as just family and friends helping, to now donations coming in from all over the globe. Our original goal was to support 30 kids, but because of the GoFundMe, we’re able to reach hundreds of kids — and that’s my biggest joy, being able to give these kids so much,” he adds. “The support has been humbling and overwhelmingly incredible.”
While the toys are fully covered by the donors, Triplett says he’s been footing the bill for wrapping paper — and plans on personally delivering them in a Santa costume closer to Christmas. “This isn’t a ‘me’ project by any means,” he notes. “This has been the result of thousands of people spreading the word and making it happen. To all those who have helped with your donations, your time, even just by sharing the cause, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart,” he adds. “Everything you have done for this cause has meant the world to me. Children need to be children, they don’t need to be reminded of trauma every day.”
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When the freshmen basketball team at Notre Dame Prep in Pontiac, Michigan, made a group text to coordinate practices, a teammate added the wrong number, resulting in an unforgettable exchange. Teammate Vinny Tartaglia meant to add his teammate Luca but was one digit off, accidentally adding the number of Buc’s cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting.
Jason Whalen, whose son is on the team, wrote about the exchange on Twitter. Murphy-Bunting responded to the group text. “Did you mean to add me to this group?….this is Sean. Do you know who I am?” Whalen explained that the boys thought their teammate was messing with them. Murphy-Bunting sent a selfie in the Bucs locker room but even with a selfie, the boys still thought that this might be a prank from one of their teammates.
To prove his identity to the disbelieving teenagers, Murphy-Bunting switched over to FaceTime, and introduced the shocked students to some of his teammates, including tight end Rob Gronkowski, wide receiver Mike Evans, running back Leonard Fournette and Tom Brady. “Leonard Fournette walked us through the locker room and showed us all the players,” said Tartaglia’s teammate Nate Seaman. “Sean Murphy-Bunting, Mike Evans, Lavonte Davis, Gronk, Richard Sherman. That’s when we all said, where’s the GOAT?”
Leonard Fournette turned the phone over to Tom Brady, who had finished up a meeting. Brady,
a Michigan alumni himself, talked about the impromptu exchange with ESPN news “That was fun. That was really fun. It was really good to see all those young kids hyped up. I didn’t know who it was.[Leonard said, ‘Here’s my boy’ or whatever he said. It was nice. It would have been nice for me when I was in high school too.”
Wrong numbers and misdials happen to everyone and sometimes end up a funny story to tell but most are usually forgettable. For the members of the boys’ freshmen basketball team at Notre Dame Prep in Pontiac, Michigan-this one will likely be passed down to their grandkids.
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The Night of A Million Lights is a holiday light show spectacular that delights thousands of visitors and raises millions to give sick children and their weary families a vacation. ‘Give Kids The World Village’ has launched their second annual holiday lights extravaganza, running until Jan. 2. The show began as an innovative pandemic pivot for raising funds but has become a holiday tradition.
More than 92,000 guests attended Night of a Million Lights in 2020, named by USA TODAY the “Number One Thing To Do In Orlando In December.” The display features 1.25M linear feet of lights, including 3.2 million lights that were donated by Walt Disney World. Last year’s event grossed $2.8 million to make wishes come true for children struggling with illness and their families.
Since 1986, Give Kids The World Village has welcomed nearly 177,000 families from all 50 states and more than 76 countries. When wish-granting organizations receive a request from a critically ill child who wants to visit Central Florida (or Disney World), Give Kids The World fulfills the wish – providing every child and his/her family with an all-inclusive dream vacation that includes transportation; accommodations in one of the Village’s 166 storybook villas; all meals and snacks; donated theme park tickets; nightly entertainment; daily gifts; and priceless experiences at the Village, featuring accessible rides and attractions.
For 52 nights the open house will once again provide the public with a rare glimpse inside Give Kids The World Village, an 89-acre, whimsical nonprofit resort that provides critically ill children with magical weeklong wish vacations at no cost. Tickets, which start at $25 but vary depending on the date and special add-ons, such as dessert parties, enable guests to immerse themselves in an exquisitely decorated fairytale neighborhood—the place where wish families call home during their stays. All proceeds from Night of a Million Lights will support Give Kids The World, rated Four Stars by Charity Navigator 15 years in a row.
Guests can explore a sparkling tree trail, take photos at one-of-a-kind step-in frames and backdrops, and enjoy a guided storytelling tour of 100 magnificently lit villas from the comfort of a tram—all of which are included in the price of the ticket.
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Amy and Tony D’Orazio have been serving their community with their 300 acre farm by giving away nearly everything they grow. Their non-profit Carversville Farm Foundation (CFF) runs a certified organic farm raising top-quality vegetables, poultry, beef and eggs. Located in Mechanicsville, PA- the farm has given away 74, 143 pounds of meat, 431,424 pounds of vegetables and 97, 417 cartons of eggs since 2015.
The farm grows vegetables, cows, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys and bees. The animals feed unfettered on fresh grass and forage from the fields. They are moved from field to field every day, clearing and fertilizing with their manure as they go and building healthy soil. CFF donates over ninety percent of their harvests to Philadelphia-area soup kitchens and food pantries. Their partnerships include Rolling Harvest Food Rescue, Broad Street Ministry, Bucks County Audubon Society, Cathedral Kitchen, Coalition Against Hunger, Manna and Urban Creators, among others. Together, they are dedicated to feeding low income families throughout the area.
In 2020, CFF gave more than 120,000 pounds of food, including pastured poultry and grass-fed beef and a wide variety of fresh produce to the Philadelphia area community. They’re on track to donate even more this year. They’ve committed to donating fifty thousand pounds of organic vegetables to low-income residents through the Bucks County Opportunity Council (BCOC) this year. Carversville Farm Foundation has been donating to the Bucks County Opportunity Council since 2016 and helps feed over 10,000 families each year.
Carversville Farm Foundation also offers an apprenticeship program to train future farmers with apprenticeships in Farm Management and Livestock. Volunteers are welcome every Wednesday and Saturday to harvest carrots and kale, pull weeds, and otherwise support their mission to grow top-quality food to donate to neighbors in need.
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An 8 year old Texas girl is selling cupcakes to buy Christmas Gifts for Foster Kids. Summer Linn, of Pearland, TX wants to help those who might feel like no one cares about them feel “wanted and loved” this holiday season. She has set out to help foster kids who feel left out this holiday season.
An avid baker and a kind soul, Summer wanted to give back – she chose foster children because she knows that it’s harder for Santa to find the foster children. “He’s very busy,” she said. “They get moved a lot. They’re special no matter what anyone says or does. Seriously. They deserve a good Christmas. They need a good home.”
That’s when she decided to start her own non-profit where she bakes cupcakes in order to raise money to buy toys for children in foster care. During Thanksgiving break, Summer set up shop close to a shopping center and had plenty of cupcakes ready for everyone passing by, one box for $5. She prepared no less than 2,063 cupcakes in her first batch!
Summer’s parents know how much this means because like the foster kids that Summer helps, her own mother also spent several years in foster care and knows how lonely and isolating it can be. Her mom, Max, was in and out of foster care for seven years as a child. “Thanksgiving and Christmas, when it’s supposed to be a time with family, you feel unwanted and unloved. Because again, you’re a foster kid,” Max recalls.
So far she has made a whopping 10,063 cupcakes and is using all of the money to buy children’s toys. “They deserve something that makes them feel wanted and loved because they are.” Summer is doing what she can to help a few foster kids have a great holiday. The third grader has now adopted 13 foster kids, whom she sends gifts and letters.
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When Suzanne Burke of Cincinnati Ohio learned her favorite Dunkin’ Donuts employee had been evicted, she wanted to help. Burke and Johnson’s friendship first started three years ago in the Dunkin’ drive-thru line. “I go every morning. Ebony has worked at the drive-thru for three years and really has provided amazing customer service.”
After noticing that Johnson was not working her usual shift for a few weeks, she reached out to her to make sure everything was okay. She learned that Johnson, a mother of three, had been evicted from her Mount Healthy home and had nowhere to live. Burke knew she had to do something to help. “I just wanted to see if I could help her just improve her life and the life of her kids. ” Burke said.
With assistance from local nonprofit organizations and designers, Burke was able to surprise Johnson and her kids with a new, fully-furnished home — just in time for the holidays. She called New Life Furniture Bank, a gently-used furnishing bank for those in need, and staging designer Jo Potvin of Design to Market for help. Potvin and the local organization ended up working together to fully furnish and decorate the new home for Johnson and her kids so that it was move-in ready.
The final result was unveiled to Johnson and her family and the emotional moment was captured by a local news organization. “Thank y’all so much,” Johnson said through tears. “Thank you so much for helping me.” Ebony told the news station “The Lord really looked out for me because I kept praying and saying ‘can I be at home before Christmas?” Ebony and her three young kids all shared smiles, tears and excitement during the unveiling.
Potvin said she couldn’t think of a better time to have surprised Johnson. “It’s the perfect time of the year to feel like you’re spreading joy” Potvin told the station. Executive director of New Life Furniture Bank, Dana Saxton shared the same sentiment. “It’s as much a gift for us as it is for them, to be able to provide this for them,” Saxton said.
New Life Furniture Bank also shared the happy moment in a Facebook post. “We’re so pleased to partner with Jo Potvin and her talented design team at Design to Market Home Staging to make Ebony’s family feel LOVED during the holiday season. Ebony, a hardworking mom and beloved Dunkin’ employee… found herself homeless. A group of caring people in our community worked together to make sure Ebony and her kids are living in a warm and comfortable home -just in time for Christmas.”
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Brazilian artist, environmentalist, and animal lover Amarildo Silva Filho was inspired after coming across a pile of used tires in his neighborhood a few years ago. Where some saw trash, Silva Filho saw an opportunity for upcycling treasure that wound up making a world of difference to stray cats and dogs.
He collects the tires he uses from unused lots, the side of the road, or waste disposal areas. These are cleaned thoroughly, cut into the right shape, and then Silva Filho puts his artistic and artisanal skills to use to create cozy, vibrantly painted, personalized animal beds. Once the custom paint jobs are complete, with the addition of hand-sewn mattresses, the colorful comfy cots are ready to be distributed to local shelters.
Silva Filho’s recycled pet beds became so popular, a niche market of eco-conscious pet owners sprang up as well. To meet the growing demand, he launched Caminhas Pets and has since created more than 6,000 hand-crafted beds in the two years of his operations. While retail sales have helped sustain his efforts, the majority of Silva Filho’s creations have gone to animals in need.
He’s even branched out to create potted plant holders from tires and play areas for kids. There’s a lot that can be done with upcycled tires, as far as Silva Filho is concerned. He’s certainly showing us that when a good idea stems from a good place, almost anything can be achieved. Silva says he intends to help as many animals as he can and he believes that the only way to do a great job is to love what you do.
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