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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The Tunnel to Towers Foundation aims to honor first responders who made the ultimate sacrifice and laid down their lives in the line of duty for their communities. Since it was founded in 2001, the foundation has developed programs to honor fallen heroes. This year they delivered 135 mortgage-free homes across the country. The Foundation will have paid off or dedicated 65 mortgage-free homes between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve as part of this year’s Season of Hope-bringing the total to 200.
Based in Staten Island, Tunnel to Towers was founded in December 2001 by Frank Siller to honor his younger brother Stephen, who died trying to save others on 9/11 even after he had already gone home from his shift as a firefighter in Brooklyn. On December 7th, the 80th commemoration of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, they announced the latest round of heroes they are honoring.
Department of Justice Marshals Service Senior Inspector Jared Keyworth – U.S. Army Veteran – Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Vice Commander Montana Search and Rescue Tyler Weir – Master Sergeant Montana Air National Guard – Great Falls, Montana
Police Corporal James Chapman – U.S. Marine Corps Veteran – Johnston, South Carolina
Virginia State Police Trooper II Chad Dermyer – U.S. Marine Corps Veteran – Richmond, Virginia
Sergeant Joseph Deccio – U.S. Army National Guard E5 – Yakima, Washington
The five mortgage pay-offs are part of the Tunnel to Towers’ Season of Hope, which celebrates the holiday season by delivering mortgage-free homes or mortgage payoffs to families of fallen first responders, Gold Star families, and catastrophically injured veterans around the country.
Chairman and CEO of the Tunnel to Towers Foundation Frank Siller said “These selfless heroes answered the call to serve their country and their community. I call them superheroes, brave men and women who stepped up to keep us safe at home and abroad. I am honored to support the families who have sacrificed so much for the freedoms and safety we all enjoy.”
Through donations and fundraising, they have also helped families of fallen heroes like Chris Hixon and Aaron Feis, the two coaches who lost their lives confronting the gunmen at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Long after names stop being mentioned in the news, the foundation continues to help the families of fallen heroes nationwide. A few of the families they’ve helped include DeKalb County Sheriff Andy Clark, killed in a crash on June 3, 2020; Toledo Ohio Police Officer Anthony Dia, 26, killed in the line of duty on July 4, 2020; Lieutenant Bradford “Brad” Clark, killed in a crash on October 11, 2018 and Raleigh Fire Department Brent Upton, who lost his life in the line of duty on March 17, 2021.
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Terence Crowster, a development worker in South Africa, has been helping disadvantaged youth in the crime-ridden Cape Town neighborhood of Scottsville for years. He helped develop anti-bullying and leadership programs at various high schools in the community. In 2017, he solicited donations and second-hand books and created new libraries he built out of repurposed shipping containers. These were dubbed the Hot-Spot Libraries because the location of the first one is at the border of an area fought over by two rival gangs.
It’s aim is to be a helpful resource to youth in the area and it has transformed the neighborhood.
Despite the dangerous postal code, the library has flourished, becoming as much a safe space as an academic one. The neighborhood residents, once torn apart by drug abuse and gang violence, have found an escape from the harsh realities of daily life and now explore different worlds in the pages of thousands of donated second-hand books.
In its first year, its membership grew to 750 young people. Its shelves are now stocked with more than 2,000 books, and educational programming is offered six days a week. Last July, Crowster opened an additional branch in the adjoining Scottsdene neighborhood, with future branches and libraries-on-wheels planned for elsewhere in Cape Town. While the libraries’ presence hasn’t stopped all the violence, it has given many youth, who typically join gangs as young as 12 years old, a source of knowledge about the world outside their neighborhoods.
“The power of reading is that it increases your understanding of who you are and where you come from” says Sabelo Ngxola, a former gangster and Crowster’s partner on the new library project. “It opens up your imagination.” During his gang days, Ngxola was shot on four separate occasions and stabbed twice before turning his life around, largely, he says, thanks to books. Once the library opens, he’ll be responsible for managing the place when Crowster isn’t around.
Crowster said he hopes the libraries will help improve the worrying trend of children with very low reading comprehension. While visiting schools he witnessed a high rate of kids that could recognize words but not effectively understand the meaning. “I have a lot of leadership, soft skills and anti-bullying programs at the schools. So the initiative basically started … when I saw most 7th, 8th, and 9th grade kids are actually illiterate” he said. A requirement of the library is reviewing each book afterwards to show if the kids are actually understanding the books they’ve read. Crowster hopes to continue building the libraries in hard hit low income neighborhoods to give impoverished youth a
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Marty Rogers, from Bronx, NY, has been feeding the homeless for 44 years. And in those four decades, the dad from Bronx, New York, has organized a Thanksgiving dinner for those in need through his church, Immaculate Conception. Every year, his three kids help him serve up the holiday meal. He said even though they’re all grown now, he can count on them to return to the Bronx and help him each Thanksgiving.
Marty was inspired to do even more a few years ago. Marty came up with what are now called “Hope Walks.” A few times a year, Marty and volunteers from the church and school would get together to make sandwiches and then walk around their South Bronx neighborhood and ask people if they’d like some food. Marty and his group try to make each person feel comfortable, and they also ask each person their name.
When the pandemic hit and many things shut down, Marty decided to ramp up his efforts. “No one was out. Everyone was quarantining. But, who is out, is more and more people who are homeless,” he said. “Now, it’s staring us really in the face. And we had the conversation and we started going out once a week with our supplies, and then we said, ‘This has to be more.’ And we went three times a week.”
Each week, they pack up bags with homemade sandwiches, snacks and water. The supplies are bought with donations from the community, including donations from businesses. Volunteers for the walks include kids from Immaculate Conception. Each volunteer grabs a bag filled with sandwiches, cookies, water, and gloves, and walks the neighborhood to look for people who might be in need. The students witness people on the street looking out for their friends, at times leading the walkers to another person “who could use” a sandwich or a bottle of water that the group was giving out.
“Our neighborhood has a lot of people who are homeless. Some of the people are seniors, some of the people might have addiction issues. We don’t ask, it’s none of our business, it’s non judgemental.” Each person they encounter is gracious for the food and the prayer. Marty has gotten to know many people in the neighborhood and is happy it’s making an impact. Rogers said he hopes other parishes, schools and church organizations replicate what the Hope Walk is doing so more people can be helped.
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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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Two Ohio siblings have donated nearly 50,000 toys over the past six years to one of the largest pediatric hospitals in the country through their annual holiday toy drive. It all started when the Slaven siblings teamed up in 2015 with one mission: to help children who are in the hospital on Christmas. This holiday season, Tyler and Monica Slaven are hoping to bring another 11,500 toys for the children at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
The siblings began utilizing their school’s expansive network of students and staff to get volunteers and donations. The Ohio Virtual Academy, an online public school for K–12 students, serves more than 18,000 kids from across the state, according to Tyler Slaven. Tyler said “The school does a tremendous job of helping us get the word out every year and reach new people, since we are a statewide school.”
With the help of the students and faculty, the Slaven siblings would start placing toy donation boxes in different towns across the state. They also stop by droves of businesses that are “very eager” to help them out with monetary donations as well as donating actual toys. Every year, the Slavens collect donations until Dec. 10th and then they and their team of volunteers use the donations to buy toys at local stores.
In 2015, they were able to donate 800 toys to the hospital. One year later, that number more than doubled, amounting to 1,700 donations. In 2017, they donated 3,000 toys and in 2018 and 2019, the toy drive broke the hospital’s record for the single largest donation with 9,200 and 20,300 toys, respectively. Every year, the toys are packed in a U-Haul vehicle and various cars and taken directly to the children.
Not only do these toys bring holiday cheer to the children and their families, but they also take their focus off of being in the hospital, Tyler said. “Seeing a child who truly understands … the joy of Christmas is priceless.” Tyler said they just wanted to help the kids still have that joy, for those who are in the hospital during Christmas and it quickly became an annual drive. “Once you get on the hospital property, it is just phenomenal. They’re so friendly and welcoming … and spirited. It’s a true joy to be around” Slaven said.
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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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