The Chancellor of Vanderbilt University is recognizing all the school’s employees for their diligent work over the past two years with a surprise bonus in their paychecks. As part of the Chancellor’s Recognition Award, all eligible staff, faculty and postdocs will get a one-time payment of $1,500 added to their paychecks at the end of March, according to the university.
Around 9,000 workers, including part-time employees, are getting the generous bonus. While announcing the award on March 17, Chancellor Daniel Diermeier expressed appreciation for staff members’ “extraordinary efforts” during the tumultuous time, saying they are “at the heart of Vanderbilt’s educational mission.”
Diermeier said “It has not been easy, especially during the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic. However, your dedication to our vision and goals enables our university to operate at its highest level. I am indeed grateful as we approach Vanderbilt’s 150th anniversary in a position of strength and with optimism about our path forward.”
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, schools across America suffered from a national teacher shortage. Every year teachers leave the profession and fewer people are entering the field each year. According to the National Education Association, the pandemic has exacerbated a challenge that has seen massive staff shortages in public schools in every state. The shortage has left teachers increasingly burnt out, with an alarming 55 percent now saying they’re ready to leave the profession they love earlier than planned.
There are over 50 million US public school students and about 3.5 million teachers. The shortage is particularly acute in areas like maths, science, languages and special education. Throughout the pandemic, administrators have been struggling to fill vacancies for teachers, substitutes and other vital school staff positions in order to keep operations going.
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A rare kind of reunion recently took place at Houston Methodist Hospital. Five strangers who received a donated kidney meet the five strangers who volunteered a kidney. They are linked in a life-saving kidney swap that involved 10 people and it has left them with a life-long bond. With all its complexities from matching antibodies to patient health, a kidney swap is where your loved one needs a kidney, but you’re not a match. So you donate to someone else in exchange for one that is a match.
The chain of the swap is similarly complex and intertwines them all by a sacrifice to save a loved one. Michael Wingard, 20, donated his kidney to 30-year-old Heather O’Neil. Because Michael is donating a kidney that will go to Heather, her twin sister, Staci, donates a kidney to a 47-year-old man named Javier Ramirez Ochoa while Lisa Jolivet, a 43-year-old mother of three, donates one that matches up with Michael’s friend, Kaelyn Connelly, so that Lisa’s 72-year-old mother, Barbara Moton, can receive a kidney from 67-year-old David McLellan, who donated so that his son Chris, who is 31, can receive a kidney from 33-year-old Tomas Martinez so that Javier Ramirez Ochoa can receive that kidney from Staci O’Neil, Heather’s twin sister.
A swap of this size is difficult to pull off and with all the complexities to be synchronized – matching antigens, patient health and COVID – this kidney swap had already been postponed three times since December. The extraordinary 10 person life chain took place over four days. All recipients in the swap are doing well and met for the first time, with the strangers that gave the gift of life.
According to the National Kidney Foundation, there are about 100,000 people in the U.S. on the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network waiting list needing a kidney yet only about 20,000 transplants are performed each year. A patient on the waiting list typically waits an average of three to five years to receive a kidney. In 2020, about 5,000 people on the list died while waiting for a match. Matching kidneys, typically donated after death, never became available.
Living donor kidney donations greatly increase the number of organs available to those still waiting for a match. Kidney swaps are an option when a patient who needs a kidney transplant has a willing donor but they aren’t a good match due to incompatible blood types. The paired exchanges give a ray of hope to life in a dire situation and free up spots on a long waiting list.
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Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott revealed in a blog post that she has donated nearly $4 billion to 465 nonprofits including a $436 million donation to Habitat for Humanity International and 84 of its affiliates to create affordable housing. That donation is the largest publicly disclosed gift from Scott so far. Her policy is to let the organizations she donates to make the announcements in the hopes of minimizing attention. Her recent post confirmed announcements by several organizations.
The announcement brings Scott’s publicly disclosed donations to more than $12 billion since 2019. In total, Scott says she’s donated to 1,257 organizations. Scott, who is worth about $48 billion according to Forbes, signed the Giving Pledge through which many billionaires have promised to donate more than half of their wealth. Scott declines interviews and only discusses her philanthropic choices through her blog posts. Her recent post touched off a wave of nonprofits announcing their plans for the donations.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America and 21 of its affiliates received its largest gift ever from Scott— $275 million. Boys & Girls Clubs of America announced a $281 million donation similarly dispersed among local chapters of the organization. HIAS, the international Jewish humanitarian organization, said Scott donated $10 million to its campaign to raise $40 million for its emergency response in Ukraine. Community Catalyst, a healthcare reform nonprofit in Boston, announced it received $25 million and would use the funds to help “create a health system rooted in race equity and health justice.”
In her blog post, Scott said 60% of the groups she and husband Dan Jewett donated to are led by women and 75% are led by people with lived experience in the regions they support and the issues they seek to address. “Our team’s focus over these last nine months has included some new areas, but as always our aim has been to support the needs of underrepresented people from groups of all kinds. Scott believes in “supporting people directly experiencing inequities is essential, both because it is informed by insights no one else can contribute, and because it seeds power and opportunity within the community itself.”
In the newest blog post, Scott said her team is working on building a website that will include a searchable database of her grants. The expansive list of organizations that received her latest round of donations have a broad range of missions and mandates—from improving women’s health to solving the climate crisis to helping military families, incarcerated people, and teachers.
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People from around the world booked 61,000 nights in Ukrainian cities via Airbnb in a social media campaign to get funds into besieged cities. The campaign saw $1.9 million raised for Ukrainians in just 48 hours. These bookings have amassed more than $15 million in aid, according to Airbnb. Out of the 61,000 stays booked at the start of March, 34,000 came from Americans, 3,000 from Canadians and 8,000 from the U.K. The company, which normally takes about 20% of each booking, waived its fees in Ukraine. Airbnb said they received more than $5.2 million in small-dollar, direct donations from a total of more than 59,000 individual donors across 92 countries.
Airbnb previously committed to setting up temporary housing for 100,000 Ukrainian refugees across Europe and North America. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky wrote “We need help to meet this goal. The greatest need we have is for more people who can offer their homes in nearby countries, including Poland, Germany, Hungary and Romania.” Airbnb hosts that want to help need only register on the Airbnb.org Help Ukraine page. Within one day of the announcement, Airbnb hosts had answered this generosity with their own. More than 29,000 individuals have signed up to open their Airbnb-listed properties to Ukrainians, including 14,000 across Europe and 4,000 in the U.S.
The Utah Jazz Foundation is also partnering with Airbnb.org to provide more than 32,200 nights of temporary housing to refugees fleeing Ukraine, a number representing exactly 200% of the capacity of their Vivint Arena home stadium. Airbnb said they have contacted leaders in 14 European countries offering to place refugees in Airbnb properties. They are working closely with governments to best support the refugee housing needs in each country, including by providing longer-term stays. The United Nations reported that over 2 million Ukrainians, about 4% of Ukraine’s population, have fled to neighboring countries, more than 1 million of them to Poland. According to UNICEF, at least half of the 2 million refugees are children.
Celebrities around the world have also responded to the need for aid to refugees. Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher raised over $30 million and Ellen DeGeneres pledged to match $10 million in donations.
Harry Potter author J.K Rowling pledged to match up to $1.3 million in donations. Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively also pledged to match $1 million in donations. Bethenny Frankel’s disaster relief organization, BStrong, has raised more than $5 million in relocation aid, in addition to the $10 million the organization already pledged to support Ukraine.
South Korean actress Lee Young-ae made an $80,000 donation, Leonardo DiCaprio donated $10 million, singer-songwriter The Weeknd donated $500,000 and committed another $500,000 from his upcoming tour, David and Victoria Beckham donated $1 million and model Gigi Hadid pledged to donate her earnings from participating in Fall 2022 Fashion Week shows this month to support humanitarian relief efforts.
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In July 2016, just days after two brothers helped their mother and sister escape their abusive father, Lance Hart fatally shot his wife Claire and their 19-year-old daughter Charlotte outside a leisure center in Spalding, Lincolnshire, before turning the gun on himself. The brothers Luke and Ryan, then aged 26 and 25, were working abroad at the time and had finally raised enough money from their engineering jobs to rent a small house for their mother and younger sister.
After the tragedy, the brothers found themselves in the waiting room of the local police station in total shock. Lance Hart had always been a bully who maintained a rule of terror in his household. He monopolized the household finances, taking Claire’s wages and gambling them away. He used the scarcity of money to isolate his family, telling them they could not afford fuel to leave the house or for Claire to meet friends for coffee. Luke and Ryan said he forced them to obey arbitrary rules throughout their childhood. “We had to fill the kettle up to exactly the same level, and if it wasn’t he’d absolutely lose it and yell at us for days” they said.
The ensuing media frenzy compelled Luke and Ryan to dedicate their lives to bring awareness to this type of abuse and help others who face controlling relationships. Posters raising awareness of coercive control, which had become a criminal offense six months earlier, led the brothers to recognize that their father had always been abusive.
They have since collaborated with the charity Level Up, to create media guidelines for domestic violence that “give people’s lives the status they deserve”. They’ve shared their experience with more than 10,000 people in more than 130 speaking engagements. They say helping teachers, the police, social services and NHS staff to gain awareness of coercive control has been heartwarming.
The brothers also give talks to members of the public, and have written a book about their experience, titled Remembered Forever. “Straightforward education of the public can make a massive difference, because domestic abuse victims themselves sometimes don’t recognize what’s happening to them, Luke said “Many safeguarding professionals have told us that they didn’t understand coercive control before, but now they see the dynamics of it, and it’s helped them intervene in many cases that they probably would have passed over otherwise” Luke said.
He and Ryan receive scores of messages from people who want to escape an abusive partner. To address this challenge more effectively, the brothers are developing an e-learning course in collaboration with the US organization Safe and Together. It will launch later this year. “It’s essentially a tool to help victims articulate what they’re going through, so that domestic abuse services can give them the support they need,” Luke says. Above all, the Hart brothers want to create a legacy for their mother and sister, who were devoted to helping others.
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David Rush started breaking Guinness World Records in 2015 before challenging himself to an amazing one-year feat. Rush is in a hurry to set more Guinness World Records, all in the name of promoting STEM education to students. The man who holds 200 Guinness records set out on a mission to set 52 records in 52 weeks last year, and now all that’s left for a handful of them is to be verified by Guinness World Records.
The father of two boys from Idaho has been turning the Guinness World Records into his autobiography for the past seven years as a way to promote STEM education. He has an electrical engineering degree from MIT and works as a senior product manager at Cradlepoint, a technology company in Idaho. He recalled being rejected from a gifted and talented program as a young student, but persevering to get accepted to MIT by pursuing a STEM education.
Rush said “A student will struggle with math or fail a science test and say, ‘I can never become an engineer, it’s too hard, they have this fixed mindset. I wanted to give students this tangible example that if you set your mind to a goal, believe in yourself and pursue it with a passion, you can accomplish virtually anything and that’s when I started breaking records as that tangible example.”
Despite working a full time job and raising two children with his wife Jennifer, who is also an engineer, he has found time to break one Guinness World Record after another. Rush said the hardest of them all was achieving the fastest 100-meter run while juggling blindfolded. The easiest was popping 10 balloons between two people in 15.25 seconds.
Rush has a total of 49 world records recognized by the Guinness World Record with four other records still pending to be verified. “You can develop any skill, talent or ability. You can become better at math, you can become better at science, you can become a better friend, a better conversationalist, or better at breaking Guinness World Records, which is just the example I’m using to make it real for students” Rush said
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NBA star Bismack Biyombo is donating his NBA seasonal salary to build a hospital in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The 29-year-old Phoenix Suns said the donation is in honor of his late father who passed away in 2021. The hospital is being built in their native country and will be named after his father Francois Biyombo .
Biyombo took last season off to care for his sick father, who passed away in August of 2021. Returning to the NBA after a year as a free agent, Biyombo signed a one-year contract with the Phoenix Suns two months ago. He announced he will donate the entire $1.3 million value of his contract to the construction of the hospital in his home town in Congo.
Biyombo said he became aware of just how fortunate he was simply to be able to bring his father to the hospital. Biyombo said building the hospital in his father’s name will consolidate his legacy whilst helping those in need back home. The construction will be carried out through the Bismack Biyombo Foundation, which uses the star’s success as an NBA player to help those in the DR Congo.
During the early pandemic, the Foundation delivered $1 million in medical supplies to hospitals across the country. The Foundation focuses on creating initiatives in athletics, education, and health to increase opportunities for children in the DRC:. The foundation’s work has resulted in 185 annually-granted scholarships, 150 higher education opportunities, and helps over a thousand patients every week receive treatment at Congolese hospitals.
“He was my everything — my friend, my business partner, my mentor and everything. This year, to give my father a gift that will continue to service people, my salary for this season will be going towards the construction of a hospital that will be named after my dad back home to give hope to the hopeless and for those individuals that can not take their family out. The idea is to give them better conditions so that they can somewhat have hope that their loved ones could potentially be able to leave and see another day” Biyombo said.
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A London hairstylist, Joshua Coombes, decided to do a good deed one day in 2015 and sparked a movement across the world. Coombes stopped to speak to a homeless man nearby and ended up giving him a free haircut while they chatted. He decided to keep giving free haircuts and post about it on social media. His social media posts about the people he met began to reach a large audience and the movement that would eventually become #DoSomethingForNothing was born.
Coombes has been telling the stories of homeless people, via offering them haircuts, ever since.
“I started by writing the captions for my photos on Instagram. I was posting before and after photos of the people I met, and the words became important,” he explained. As his posts began to reach more people, Coombes was approached to write the book.
His work caught the attention of Hollywood actor and director Morgan Freeman. National Geographic’s 2017 six-part documentary series The Story of Us, which was presented by Freeman, featured Coombes. In an episode called Love, filmed in south London, Freeman unpicks how love runs through what Coombes does. “Small acts of love can make a big impact,” notes Freeman in the film.
Coombes’ recently published book, Do Something for Nothing, shares tales that cover loss, addiction and abandonment, but also hope, resilience and tenacity. He is now a firm believer in storytelling as a means of creating change. His photos and captions help delve beneath the surface of homelessness, whether by unpicking the reasons why people have ended up in that situation, or simply by telling small details about them.
Coombes has now traveled the world, spreading a message of kindness and inspiring people to use their gifts to help others. The movement encourages people to connect their skills and time to those who need them. Stylists and barbers across the world were inspired to give free haircuts in their community with the goal of using their gift to share a message of kindness. Across the world, people of all skill sets have joined in with Do Something For Nothing as a way to express their humanity; yoga instructors volunteering in rehabilitation centers, students spending time to have lunch with senior citizens, veterinarians offering free veterinary care to the pets of homeless people-even a physiotherapist now offering free back pain consultations.
The Do Something For Nothing movement’s message is simple- If everyone, in every city, did one thing for nothing, we could change the world. This isn’t about raising awareness, it’s about raising compassion. Some issues in this world require donations and financial aid, but others are greatly improved by our sharing time.
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Canine CellMates is a rehabilitative program, designed to help rehabilitate incarcerated men using shelter dogs. Since 2013, the nonprofit has invited inmates at Fulton County Jail to learn to train shelter dogs for adoption in a 10-week program. The dogs get 24/7 socialization and training from the men in a special dormitory for trainers, who can learn valuable life skills as well.
Last year the nonprofit created the Beyond the Bars program: a sentencing alternative that keeps men out of jail. Instead of being incarcerated or proceeding further through the legal system, participants commit to training shelter dogs for a year at a new Canine CellMates facility, leased with a grant from the nonprofit Best Friends Animal Society.
More than 400 men have worked with Canine CellMates and more than 150 shelter dogs have been adopted, according to Susan Jacobs-Meadows, the nonprofit’s founder. The goal is to offer repeat offenders a chance for personal growth. “Once somebody’s in the system once, it’s bad. But once they’re there for the second or third time, their opportunity to get out of and stay out of the system is small. There are almost no resources for those men. Society is done with them… so they’re the ones who really have my heart” Jacobs-Meadows said.
The program is also giving the dogs a second chance. They’re typically pulled from Fulton County Animal Services, an open-intake — and often overcrowded — municipal shelter. Jacobs-Meadows said “The magic of our program is the dogs, they are what starts the process for positive change.” The Canine CellMates team offers long-term support to adopters and supports graduates of its programs.
Jacobs-Meadows stays in touch with many of the program’s graduates who befriend her on Facebook, call or drop by the dog-training facility. Often they have recovered from drug and alcohol addiction, and work jobs, volunteer and reconnect with estranged loved ones. Numerous studies have shown the positive impact of dog-training programs in correctional facilities gives the participants a sense of being connected to a community with training as an act of service while they experience less anxiety and improved mood, leading to lower infraction rates while incarcerated.
Atlanta resident Ray Keith, still participates in the Beyond the Bars and was one of seven men to graduate on Dec. 16, 2021, from phase one of the first class of Beyond the Bars. After a year of participating in Beyond the Bars, his criminal record will be wiped clean. In the meantime, Canine CellMates helped him find a job as a “bark ranger” at a dog park with a popular bar. “Coming from where I’m from, it helped me get a second chance at life,” he said. “The program is definitely giving me a second chance and also giving the dogs a second chance.”
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HOPE Chicago has committed to raising $1 billion in support and funding over the next decade for scholarships for students at five Chicago Public Schools. The unprecedented scholarship program in Chicago will award 4,000 students across five high schools — and their parents — college scholarships at about 20 Illinois state universities and city colleges.
The multi-generation scholarship program is being launched by Hope Chicago, the nonprofit led by former Chicago Public Schools CEO Dr. Janice Jackson. They have raised $40 million already with funding partners that include several corporations, financial institutions, and private family foundations. 4,000 students at Benito Juarez, Al Raby, Morgan Park, Noble-Johnson College Prep, and Farragut Career Academy will get their post secondary education fully funded.
The scholarship will go toward tuition, room and board, books, and fees — making it easier to pursue a higher education without the financial burden often associated with a college degree. Unlike free scholarship programs, there’s no minimum GPA requirement to qualify.
“As a life-long educator, I understand the barriers that college students face as they enter the higher education system. Many of those — financial, social, psychological and emotional — have been further exaggerated by the COVID-19 pandemic hindering student success. By working with community, civic, and business leaders, this is an opportunity to redefine the education landscape in our city,” Jackson said. Jackson made the life changing announcement inside the auditorium at Benito Juarez Community Academy and students erupted into applause, some of them cried as they embraced each other.
National data recently emerged showing plummeting numbers of students enrolling in college amid the pandemic. Despite the pandemic’s disruption, Chicago Public Schools saw an increase in students graduating compared to the previous year. And while more of the district’s students are enrolling in college, there have been dips in college persistence as students don’t stay enrolled.
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