All posts by admin

How to help Soapbox make personal hygiene kits that will be donated to local charities

Soapbox Giving Tour is traveling through 16 cities to donate soap and personal hygiene kits that will be donated to local charities and volunteers are needed.

By Heather Newgen

Clean beauty company Soapbox is raising awareness for the importance of hand hygiene by doing a multi-city tour donating hand soap and personal hygiene kits. Volunteers are needed and “Gossip Girl” star Savannah Lee Smith joined Soapbox in NYC to assemble hygiene kits in Comfort Cases for local charities and kick off The Soapbox Giving Tour, featuring the world’s largest bottle of soap. The tour, and a 21ft bottle of Soapbox hand soap, will travel to 16 cities, remind people to continue to wash their hands and garner a Guinness Book World Record for most hygiene products donated in a week.

soapbox – New York, NY – 07/16/2021 – Savannah Lee Smith joined Soapbox in NYC to kick off The Soapbox Giving Tour.
-PICTURED: Savannah Lee Smith PHOTO by: Michael Simon/startraksphoto.com

The 21-foot tall, 8.5-foot diameter, 2500-pound metal and fiberglass bottle will then travel to 15 other cities: Boston, Mass. (July 16); Manchester, N.H. (July 17); Buffalo, N.Y. (July 18); Chicago, Ill. (July 20); Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn (July 21).; Bentonville, Ark. (July 23); Dallas, Texas (July 24); Austin, Texas (July 25); Atlanta, Ga. (July 27); Rockville, Md. (July 29); Virginia Beach, Va. (July 31); Raleigh, N.C. (August 1); Washington, DC (August 2); Philadelphia, Pa. (August 3) and Pittsburgh, Pa. (August 4).

Soapbox

Soapbox, which operates on a buy-one-give-one model — where every product sold donates a bar of soap to someone in need — will donate pallets of soap and personal hygiene kits to local charities at every stop, including 144,000 bars of soap and 3,900 hygiene kits to Comfort Cases. Soapbox will earn a world records over the course of the tour: the most hygiene products donated within a week.

Retailers Walgreens, Wegmans, Sally Beauty, Hannaford, Hy-Vee, Rite Aid, Giant Food, Giant Eagle, Lowes Food, and H-E-B will welcome the world’s biggest bottle of soap at select stores. Shoppers and community members are invited to take photos, enter a raffle for product giveaways, and assist with assembling hygiene kits that will be donated to children in the foster care system within their local community.

“The COVID pandemic has helped highlight the importance of handwashing, but as mask mandates go away, we can’t let our guard down,” Soapbox co-founder and CEO David Simnick told The Voluntourist in an email statement. “People around the world get sick and die every day because they can’t properly wash their hands due to lack of access to soap and water.”

“In the U.S., food stamps don’t cover personal hygiene products like soap,” continues Simnick. “We hope this tour brings attention to that important issue as well.”

Simnick was inspired to launch Soapbox in 2010 after an internship with USAID exposed him first-hand to communities lacking soap and clean water. To date, the company has donated more than 22 million bars of soap worldwide.

“We are honored to be a part of this tour,” says Comfort Cases founder Rob Scheer, whose charity provides backpacks filled with comfort and personal care items to youth entering the foster care system. “Teaching children the importance of handwashing, particularly in underserved communities, can be a lifesaver.”

According to the United Nations, handwashing with soap is one of the most effective barriers to the spread of diseases. Around 297,000 children under five – more than 800 every day – die annually from diseases due to poor hygiene, poor sanitation, or unsafe drinking water.

To volunteer with Soapbox, message them on Instagram to sign up.

July 19, 2021 admin

Los Angeles volunteers needed at Project Angel Food

Project Angel Food has reopened its doors to volunteers and here’s how you can get involved.

By Heather Newgen

For over 30 years Project Angel Food has served the Los Angeles community by preparing and delivering medically tailored meals to people battling life-threatening illnesses like cancer, kidney disease, heart disease, HIV and other serious health conditions.

“The people we serve are people who can’t shop or cook for themselves. They’re homebound. We all have a neighbor who doesn’t come out of their home. That neighbor is the person we’re taking care of. That neighbor is who we’re the shopper for, the chef for and the delivery person for. They need us. Most of them live alone,” Richard Ayoub, executive director of Project Angel Food told The Voluntourist.

He added, “77% of the people we serve tell us we’re there only food source. Could you imagine if we didn’t come knocking at their door, how would they eat?”

The organization has always heavily relied on volunteers to help. Usually 80 percent of the kitchen staff are volunteers, but due to Covid-19, the nonprofit stopped using volunteers.

“The pandemic forced us to put a pause on volunteers. We have now opened up the kitchen to volunteers again, and we opened up drivers to volunteers. We have a volunteer shortage. Yes, we need you back. We want you back and please come back,” Ayoub said.

In the meantime, eight out of work restaurant chefs were hired to help out.

Here’s three ways you can volunteer.

1. Volunteer in the kitchen cooking and packing meals.

Kitchen shifts are from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. or 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

“In 2020, we cooked and prepared 1 million meals. That’s a lot of meals. They’re all done individually by hand. So we need volunteers to come and lend a hand and I fuse their love and energy in the meals,” Ayoub told us.

2. Deliver the meals.

Volunteers are needed to do about 10 deliveries a day you pick up the meals. You would pick up the food in Hollywood at Project Angel Food and get a chance to meet the clients face to face “with a mask and 6 foot distancing. You can cheer them up and do some good at the same time,” Ayoub said.

3. Telephone angels program.

“You can be a telephone buddy with one of our clients who has told us they feel extra lonely and they would love someone to get on the phone and chat with them once a week. Sometimes that conservation is 10 minutes, sometimes it’s 45 minutes or more. It depends on what that client needs to say. Sometimes just having someone on the other end of the phone helps so much. You can do it anywhere. We have a virtual training session that we do. You can be anywhere in the United States or across the world if you’d like,” Ayoub explained.

In addition, Ayoub suggested celebrating your birthday by bringing a group of friends to volunteer.

“It’s a beautiful way to celebrate your birthday by doing something for someone else. It’s a unique way to celebrate. You can come here, be of service and we will serve you a meal. You can eat and have a great time and celebrate knowing you helped a lot of people feel better.”

Project Angel Food has served record numbers of people since the pandemic and will continue to help as many as possible.

[We’ve] “added 800 new people to our program within the last year. We went from serving 1500 people a day to 2300 today and every day. Our motto is for life, for love, for as long as it takes. So these clients, we are keeping them as long as it takes. Some need us for just a few weeks. Some need us for a month, some for a year or even longer. We’re not saying goodbye to them, but we continue to feed them,” Ayoub stated.

To help lighten the financial burden, the “Lead with Love 2021” telethon is back for a second year in a row and aims to raise $1 million dollars, which helps cover the additional food needed for the new clients and the chefs who have replaced about 25 volunteers.

To watch the “Lead with Love 2021” telethon, that’s hosted by “Will & Grace” star Eric McCormack and KTLA 5 morning anchor Jessica Holmes, tune in Saturday July 17th to KTLA 5 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm.

For more information visit on how to volunteer visit angelfood.org.

July 17, 2021 admin

Virtual Volunteer Opportunities for Pride 2021

Want to volunteer for Pride, but you’re not comfortable attending in person events? We’ve compiled a list of virtual volunteer opportunities you can get involved with.

By Sharon Knolle

If you missed your neighborhood’s Pride parade this year — or if it’s been canceled because of COVID — there are still plenty of virtual volunteer opportunities to help LBGTQ+ communities across the country. Consider donating your time and energy to these organizations who are welcoming virtual volunteers.

Support the Latino Equality Alliance and Win Stuff

Buy a raffle ticket for the Purple Lily Awards, which honors leaders who helped create a safer, healthier, more inclusive space for the Latinx LGBTQ+ community in Los Angeles, and you can win major prizes, such as a 43″ flat screen Smart TV, football tickets, Magic Mountain passes and gym passes. This virtual awards ceremony will be held on June 24, but raffle winners don’t have to be present to claim a prize. Proceeds from the event will benefit LEA’s LGBTQ+ youth/parent empowerment and wellness programs.

RSVP for general admission or buy raffle tickets here:

Write Thank-You Letters to Donors

Take part in a letter-writing campaign to thank donors to COLORS LGBTQ+ Youth Counseling Services, which provides free counseling and psychotherapeutic services to LGBTQ+ youth under 25, their partners, and their families in the Greater Los Angeles Area. People can also share personal stories about the impact that mental health services have had in their lives. Join this virtual event on Saturday June 26th at 1pm.

Raise Money for 2021 Virtual Walk for AIDS to Benefit House of Mercy

A virtual 2021 Walk for AIDS will take place Saturday, September 18, 2021. The money raised will benefit House of Mercy. It’s a North Carolina nonprofit that was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1991 to provide housing and medical care for low-income persons living with AIDS. House of Mercy also needs help with administrative duties, many of which can be done remotely, such as HR support, social media and grant writing. Here is their virtual Volunteer Application form.

You can also buy items off House of Mercy’s Amazon wish list.

YEAR-ROUND VOLUNTEERING

Join an Encircle Online Friendship Group

You can join an online friendship circle to provide connection, belonging, and community to LGBTQ+ people who might not have the support they need offline. Encircle’s goal is to offer support and encouragement and help attendees of all ages feel more authentically themselves. For more information about this Utah-based organization, visit here.

Find Auction Items for TIHAN (Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network)

This Tucson Arizona group, which benefits people living with HIV and AIDS, needs help finding items for their charity auction. If you can spend two to five hours a week emailing businesses and individuals — or doing research on who might be a corporate donor — email them at VolunteerCoordinator@tihan.org.

Answer Crisis Calls for LGBTQ Youth

Help provide life-saving support to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth with The Trevor Project. They are looking for volunteers to staff their crisis intervention services for LGBTQ+ youth who are struggling with issues such as coming out, identity, depression, and suicide. Digital Crisis Counselors are trained to answer chats or texts 24 hours a day. Volunteers 18 and over are encouraged to apply if you can make a commitment of one three-hour shift/week for at least one year.

Other organizations looking for volunteers:

Equality Time: Contact lawmakers to help the LGBTQ+ community access essential services without fear of harassment or discrimination.

NQAPIA

The Federation of LGBTQ+ Asian American, South Asian, Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander Organizations supports the Queer Asian community across the country.

Pride Foundation: Pride Foundation is seeking volunteers, including BIPOC, those living in rural areas, and trans and gender-diverse people in the Pacific Northwest.

DC Anti-Violence Project

June 14, 2021 admin

Exclusive: Denyce Graves on performing at the National Memorial Day Concert and President Biden giving her a shoutout in his inaugural speech

Denyce Graves on performing at the National Memorial Day Concert and President Biden giving her a shoutout in his inaugural speech.

By Jami Philbrick

The 32nd National Memorial Day Concert returns with an all-star lineup to salute our American heroes. The PBS multi-award winning show is hosted by Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise with Denyce Graves performing “American Anthem,” which has a very special meaning to her and President Biden who mentioned the song in his inaugural speech.

“I jumped out of my chair and started screaming. I was doing a hallelujah dance in my living room. That was just terrific. I had sung that song at the memorial service for the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s funeral and then President-elect Biden was in attendance and heard that song. He came up to me after the service and said, ‘I love that song. What is that song?’ So, we had a chance to talk about the piece and he told me how meaningful it was to him. When he quoted that at the end of the inaugural, I almost passed out. I couldn’t believe it,” Graves exclusively told The Voluntourist.

The 2021 NATIONAL MEMORIAL DAY CONCERT will share the following stories:

Vietnam Nurses Tribute – performed by Emmy Award-winning actress Kathy Baker (PICKET FENCES).
The concert will honor the more than 265,000 women who served during the Vietnam War era and pay special tribute to the sacrifice and heroism of the nurses who served in Vietnam, saving thousands of lives and comforting the dying in their final moments. The experiences of Diane Carlson Evans, founder of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial in Washington, D.C., will be shared.

70th Anniversary of the Korean War – portrayed by Emmy Award-winning actor Joe Morton (SCANDAL).
Now, seventy years after the Korean War, the concert will pay tribute to the more than 1.7 million Americans sent to fight in this brutal conflict, and the over 36,000 American lives lost. No group exemplified the courage and heroism of our fighting forces more than the 2nd Ranger Infantry Company. Taking on dangerous assignments, serving with distinction and honor, this elite Airborne unit was the Army’s only all-black Ranger Infantry Company. On the cusp of our military’s integration, these trailblazing heroes changed attitudes, and opened possibilities for all African American men and women in uniform.

20th Anniversary of 9/11 and Gold Star Families – featuring Emmy Award-winning actor Steve Buscemi (BOARDWALK EMPIRE), acclaimed actresses Mary McCormack (WEST WING) and Bailee Madison (A WEEK AWAY). This Memorial Day, in a segment hosted by Steve Buscemi, the concert will commemorate the 20 years since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, remembering all those who died that tragic day and in the twenty years since in service to our nation. It was a pivotal time for the country, and many Americans were inspired to join our all-volunteer armed forces. The concert will honor these service members and their families affected by a generation at war and share the poignant story of one Gold Star Family.

Due to the pandemic, the National Memorial Day Concert will be pre-taped, instead of the traditional live show held at the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. The special 90 minute event airs on PBS Sunday, May 30th at 8:00 P.M. ET and will include General Colin Powell, Gladys Knight, Vince Gill, Sara Bareilles, Alan Jackson, The Four Tops, Steve Buscemi, Joe Morton, Brian d’Arcy James, Kathy Baker, Denyce Graves, Mary McCormack, Bailee Madison and the National Symphony Orchestra, with a Special Performance of the National Anthem by Mickey Guyton.

May 29, 2021 admin

How Joe Morton is paying tribute to Black soldiers at the 32nd Annual National Memorial Day Concert

Joe Morton pays tribute to Korean War veterans, Black soldiers and his own father in this year’s National Memorial Day Concert, which airs on PBS.

By Sharon Knolle

At the 32nd annual National Memorial Day Concert, Joe Morton, who won an Emmy for his role as Rowan Pope on “Scandal,” will share the story of Cleveland Valrey, a decorated officer of the Korean War who was part of the Army’s only all-black Ranger Infantry Company. Valrey is now fighting Parkinson’s Disease and could not attend this year’s ceremony, which takes place every year at the National Mall in Washington D.C.

The decorated veteran received a number of military awards for his Korean War service including the Combat Infantryman Badge, Purple Heart, Army Commendation Medal, and the United Nations Service Medal. Valrey, who achieved the rare status of both Master Parachutist and a Master Army Aviator, continued serving for 30 years through the Vietnam War. In 2001, he was inducted into the U.S. Army Aviation Hall of Fame and in 2005 was inducted into the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame.

Valrey’s story resonates with Morton because the actor’s own father, Joseph Thomas Morton Sr., served a key role in the Korean War.

“His job when he arrived in Okinawa was to integrate the Armed Forces overseas,” Joe Morton shares. “He was taking on a responsibility that was enormous. In spite of the fact that, legislatively, the Army was supposedly integrated, it still had
to go through all of the difficulties of actually implementing that. ”

He recalls it wasn’t an easy position to be in for him or his parents: “When I was a kid, you would hear white soldiers say terrible things about and to Black soldiers. The fact my father was a Captain and was there as a Black man in charge of white enlistees, he was tremendously looked down upon. I was involved in fights with white kids on posts. My mother had to deal with
the white women who were other officers’ wives. It was a real education, in terms of the kind of belief systems and the kind of horrors that Black people had to go through in this country for a very long time.”

A proud Army brat, Morton was honored to help pay tribute to soldiers like Valrey.

”I think slowly but surely, Black soldiers, not only from Korea, but from World War II, are finally getting the kind of recognition they deserve. For the longest time, in any war films, you seldom saw Black soldiers, or Black airmen, in any kind of conflict. So it’s easy for this country to believe that we were never part of that history.”

Says Morton of the Memorial Day tribute, “When we filmed it, some of the Rangers were sitting to my right and at the end I was able to shake their hands and congratulate them. It’s a beautiful ceremony. I was telling the story of someone with great courage who was willing to put his life on the line. I just hope people take the time to watch it and understand that when these conflicts have happened and America has taken part, that more often than not, there have been Black soldiers who have been part of it.”

The actor at one point considered joining the Air Force himself, but was told that because he had to wear glasses, being a pilot was not an option. (The Air Force has since revised its rules and will now allow candidates without 20/20 vision to become pilots.)

“My father had a very large impression on me, so I think whenever I’ve played a military character, he’s certainly foremost in my mind,” he shares of his father, who passed away when he was only 10.

“Even when I was in ‘Scandal’ and I was playing Rowan, a lot of who that man was and his determination to guard the republic was very much who my father was.” Joe Morton has directed episodes of “Scandal,” “Bull,” and “God Friended Me” and is planning on directing and producing a film about Eugene Jacques Bullard, the first Black military aviator, who heroically fought for France, but ended up as an elevator operator at Radio City Music Hall.

Morton, who is now 73, has seen the military make huge strides in improving equity for Black servicemen and women: “I was watching the news today and the retired General Honoré was one of the people who was talking about what happened on January 6, so I think that says a great deal,” he says.

He was also happy to reconnect with former Secretary of State Colin Powell at this year’s ceremony. “I portrayed him in a play [2004’s “Stuff Happens”], and he is a huge example of how things have changed,” he says of the retired four-star general.

The National Memorial day Concert will be hosted by Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna and air on Sunday, May 30th on PBS at 8:00 P.M. ET.

May 28, 2021 admin

Former Vietnam nurse Diane Carlson Evans will be honored this Memorial Day

The National Memorial Day Concert will pay tribute to the more than 265,000 nurses who served during Vietnam, including Diane Carlson Evans who advocated for women to have a place of honor in Washington D.C.

By Sharon Knolle

The National Memorial Day Concert, airing on PBS, will pay tribute to among its other honorees, the nurses who served in Vietnam. Former Army nurse Diane Carlson Evans, without whom we wouldn’t have the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, spoke to us about why she fought for 10 years for a memorial honoring the women who served alongside the male soldiers in Vietnam.

Like other Vietnam War veterans, Diane Carlson Evans did not talk about her experiences after serving from 1968 to 1969: “Many of us hid our experience and decided it was too painful to talk about.”

When the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in 1982, Carlson Evans, who lives in Montana, made the journey to D.C. to see the memorial in person. She looked for the name of one of her patients and the name of Sharon Lane, a nurse who was killed in Vietnam in June of 1969.

“I found their names and it was a turning point for me personally, because I now began to identify myself as a Vietnam veteran,” she says. “Very few people knew I had been there because I didn’t tell them.”

In 1984, a second statue was added next to Maya Lin’s memorial, “The Three Soldiers,” which shows three men in uniform looking at the names on the memorial wall.

Diane Carlson Evans shares, “It was that statue that started me thinking that we don’t see women who served during wartime. We don’t read many stories about them, there haven’t been many images of them, we’re not much in the history books or movies. I thought to myself, ‘If there’s going to be a statue that looks like men, there needs to be one that looks like women. If they belong there, we belong there. We went to Vietnam to help bring them home. That was our job as nurses.”

She found a sculptor to make a prototype and, with a group of likeminded allies, presented it to the Commision of Fine Arts in D.C. “They flat out rejected the idea,” she says, recalling her shock that they would not want to honor the women who cared for and comforted the soldiers.

“Women didn’t have to go. We were volunteers,” Diane Carlson Evans points out. “Women have never been conscripted into the armed forces. We signed up. We still do. Back then, they weren’t sending women into combat, but they sent nurses into combat. Nurses have died in all of our wars. That was part of my proposal, these were women who signed up and put themselves in peril to help our fellow soldiers, who were, at the time, all men.”

The reaction from the all-male panel?

A statue honoring women was “unnecessary” and its addition would “demolish” the integrity of the existing memorials. The commission’s chairman went so far as to say that if they decided to allow women to have a statue at the memorial, they
would have to allow the K9 corps to have theirs as well. “He just put us in the same category as dogs,” says Carlson Evans, who still shakes her head in disbelief.

“Maya Lin’s design was complete,” she says of the Wall. “It included the eight female nurses who died. She didn’t forget them. The statue of the three men, I felt, made the memorial incomplete, because once again the women were invisible.” Despite the rejection, she persisted. She recruited women from all 50 states to send letters to the commissioners and the federal agencies who could greenlight the memorial. They eventually got Congress, which supersedes the Commission of Fine Arts, to pass two bills to approve the site. “Then we had to fight for the design,” she says.

The first statue concept was rejected, so the nonprofit project behind the women’s memorial held a design competition. “That’s how we found Glenna Goodacre in New Mexico, a woman who captured the essence of our service,” she says.

When she returned to present the new design, it was with the backing of fellow veterans’ groups, including the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, Vietnam Veterans of America, and the Military Purple Hearts: “I had gone to every single convention and implored them for their support and they got behind us. Tens of thousands of the male veterans got behind us.”

On November 11, 1993, the memorial was finally dedicated. It portrays three women caring for an injured male soldier, one cradling him in an homage to Michaelangelo’s Pietà.

“It took 10 years,” Carlson Evans says. “You know what they say about women having to work longer and harder to prove ourselves.”

Her book, “Healing Wounds,” was released last year on Memorial Day. “I went to Vietnam to heal the wounds of war,” she says, adding, “that healing continues until we pass on to the other side. I do it on an everyday basis.”

While serving in Vietnam, she was aware that her life could end at any moment.

“I knew I wasn’t bulletproof. Our hospital was rocketed and mortared frequently,” she says. “Once you’re in that warzone and you’re doing your job, you just forget about yourself. The patients come first. You do whatever it takes to protect them. That was our mission. When there was incoming, we grabbed our helmets and our flak jackets and we got to work. We threw mattresses on top of patients who couldn’t get under the beds on their own. When we saw that all our patients were taken care of, then we would go for cover.

She laughs, “This idea that women can’t be in combat because they’re a bunch of ‘shrinking violets’ and the men will have to take care of them and won’t get anything done? No. In Vietnam, no man was taking care of us. We were there taking care of the men. We were there to bring them home alive. It wasn’t the other way around.”

Actress Kathy Baker will tell the incredible story of Diane Carlson Evans at the National Memorial Day Concert, which airs on PBS Sunday, May 30th, at 8:00 P.M. ET.

May 27, 2021 admin

Bono’s One Campaign and Hive Launch Pandemica to shine a light on the Covid-19 Vaccine Inequality

Bono, Penélope Cruz, David Oyelowo, Kumail Nanjiani, Phoebe Robinson, and more to star in Pandemica, ONE Campaign’s animated series to raise awareness of vaccine access crisis.

By Heather Newgen

To help spread the word about the importance of getting the Covid-19 vaccine, the ONE Campaign, which is co-founded by Bono, is premiering Pandemica, an animated content series created by Hive about a world of never-ending pandemic purgatory, where COVID-19 never goes away, but continues to mutate and cross borders. The message the creators at hive aim to send – unless the vaccine is everywhere, the pandemic isn’t going anywhere.

The fastest way to end the COVID-19 pandemic is to ensure vaccines are available to everyone, everywhere. But, people living in the world’s poorest countries are being left behind. Currently, one-third of the world’s countries have yet to see a single dose of vaccine, while a handful of wealthy countries have enough vaccines to inoculate their entire populations and still have more than 1 billion doses left over –including 550 million excess doses secured by the US alone. And, without every country able to roll-out vaccinations, we could see twice as many deaths.

“Pandemica’s animated world animates a simple truth –that where you live shouldn’t determine whether you get these life-saving shots,” said Bono, lead singer, U2 and co-founder of ONE and (RED). “Even while many of us still wait our turn, we need to commit to making sure that billions of people around the world aren’t left at the back of the line. It’s the right thing to do, obviously, but it’s also the only way out of this pandemic for all of us. If the vaccine isn’t everywhere, this pandemic isn’t going anywhere.”

“Pandemica is a compelling illustration of the inequality around the world,” said Penélope Cruz, who lends her voice in the Pandemica series. “I hope that everyone who watches this series will use their voice and take action to ensure that no one gets left behind.”

“We’re all trapped in Pandemica, but only some can get out. This virus thrives on inequality, and right now billions of people around the world are seeing the promise of a vaccine, but not the opportunity to receive it,” said David Oyelowo, actor and Mountaineer in Pandemica. “We must step up and do what it takes to end this pandemic for everyone, everywhere.”

To raise awareness about the vaccine access crisis, Hive, a social impact agency that creates campaigns to spark positive change, teamed up with Bono’s One Campaign. The company has recently created high profile campaigns including ONE’s #PasstheMic , VOW to End Child Marriage for Girls Not Brides and Give Bold #Get Equal for equal rights for women and girls. For this campaign Jenifer Willig, co-founder and CEO of Hive said, “We’re so honored to work with ONE and help them ring the alarm about the urgent need for a global response to COVID-19. The truth is we’re in a race against the virus and its variants and run the risk of keeping the world in lockdown if vaccines and treatments aren’t made available globally. We created Pandemica to highlight COVID inequity and the urgency and importance of fair vaccine distribution.”

March 26, 2021 admin

How Ready, Set, Gold Helps Kids Get Healthy

With the help of Olympians and Paralympians, Ready, Set, Gold inspires kids in Southern California schools to adopt healthy lifestyles.

By Heather Newgen

To help students prepare for healthy lifestyles, Ready, Set, Gold teams up with Olympians and Paralympians who visit SoCal schools to share their stories, workout with kids and help motivate them to stay physically active. The program was founded in 1988, “Ready, Set, Gold was actually spawn from a failed Olympic bid, but it was such a great concept and vision that sponsors gravitated towards it,” President & CEO of the LA Sports Council and Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games, David Siegel said.

He continued, “And the program has been going on for 14 years. We put Olympians and Paralympians into SoCal area schools and the whole idea is olympians and paralympians demonstrate a proven track record for overcoming adversity and obstacles to achieve their dreams and our program. We’re a between the bell program. We’re not an after school program. Each lesson includes not only a fitness element, but a growth mindset element in which the athlete shares a personal story and that could be setting and achieving personal goals and fitness goals. Growth mindset is what we’re looking to get for the kids. There’s not another program like it in the world. It offers a very special opportunity for students to connect and work with these olympic champions to create enduring bonds and demonstrate that hard work leads to long term physical and well being and personal achievement. 84% of those schools are underscored schools in those title 1 communities.”

Like everything else, Ready, Set, Gold had to readjust their program due to Covid, but as a result, they’ve been able to reach more kids, Usually, the program operates in five school districts at 72 schools, serving almost 10,000 students in person to date.

However, the pandemic forced Ready, Set, Gold to go virtual. Launching in the fall of 2020, Ready, Set, Gold successfully hosted an eight-week series of 30 minute videos with a spring semester that just launched running from March 1-April 26. A new video will drop every Monday (minus March 29) showcasing a workout that’s free for children of all ages with one of its 40 current athletes on its rapidly growing roster. To date, Ready, Set, Gold has helped 15,000 children stay active while school has been closed, though they’ve decided to keep this element of their program going when schools reopen.

“It’s really enabled us to scale the program in a way that we didn’t dream possible for many, many years. So now we actually have 2 components to our program. We’re going to have an in school when everyone gets back to normal and kids are able to go to school full-time and we’re going to continue to move forward with the virtual programming as well. The virtual component gives us the ability to scale across the country and around the world.”

To show your support for Ready, Set, Gold, you can tune into this year’s 16th annual LASports Awards, airing at 8pm on Spectrum SportsNet and SportsNetLA. Sports fans can bid in their silent auction where a portion of the proceeds will keep the program funded and going strong for years to come.

March 22, 2021 admin

Pianos for People is helping give the gift of music to others with free pianos

How Pianos for People is helping give the gift of music to others with free pianos.

By Sharon Knolle

The power of music is undeniable and the organization Pianos for People is making music more accessible to those with limited resources.

Jeanne and her late husband Tom Townsend started Pianos for People nine years ago in St. Louis, the non-profit has given out more than 300 pianos to people who would otherwise never be able to afford one. It’s been life-changing for several recipients, including teen prodigy Royce Martin, who’s now studying at the Berklee College of Music in Boston thanks to the program.

Pianos for People

Pianos for People now has two free piano schools, one in St. Louis, and one in Ferguson, Missouri, and both are beginning to re-open after the COVID shutdown.

Recently, St. Louis Community leaders and philanthropists Jeanne and Tom Townsend were awarded with the Caucus’ Humanitarian Award, followed by a special performance by Pianos for People student prodigy Royce Martin who is now in his third year of studies at Berklee College of Music, Boston. He has collaborated with musician Jon Batiste and most recently contributed to the score of the “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” reboot.

Royce Martin performance for the 38^th Annual Caucus Awards

The Voluntourist: How did you come up with the idea for Pianos for People?

Jeanne Townsend: My son Alex passed away in a car accident in 2009 when he was an art student. We created the Alex Townsend Foundation and a few projects spun off of that, including Pianos for People. My husband Tom was a very serious jazz piano player in his spare time and my son also played the piano. So Tom came up with the idea of creating an
organization to give unused pianos to lower-income people, people who wouldn’t otherwise have a piano.

The Voluntourist: When did you start the first music school?

Jeanne Townsend: After a year or two, we discovered it would be really great if we could add a lessons component. We opened our piano school in 2014, so each of the recipients of the piano could take lessons and learn how to play. That’s how it all started.

The Voluntourist: How many pianos have you given out since you started?

Jeanne Townsend: It’s about 300 now and served thousands of students at this point. We have two schools, one in Ferguson, Missouri and one in South St. Louis. Both of those schools have been closed during COVID, but are opening back up again. We did online lessons [during the lockdown] and that worked really well, too.

The Voluntourist: How did you get involved with the program, Royce? Did they come to you or did you go to them?

Royce Martin: I was playing a Casio 76 keyboard, which is really just a toy. I played that until it broke in October of 2015. And then discouraged Royce looked up “piano donations” online and Pianos for People is the first thing that popped up. I filled out an essay as if I was my mom to get the piano, but I figured out that the application that I sent in wasn’t even the one that got me the piano. I went to an arts high school, so my orchestra teacher had taken some interest in me
and realized I didn’t have a real acoustic instrument at home, so he filled out an application for Pianos for People on my behalf. February 20, 2016 is when I got the piano donated to my house from them. It was my first acoustic piano, so it was pretty exciting. And I got to practice on it a lot.

The Voluntourist: How has Pianos for People changed your life?

Royce Martin: My life has changed a lot since I was 16 [and I first got the piano]. I won this competition back home in St. Louis. Once I won the competition and got some publicity, I realized it was something I could possibly do for the rest of my life. In 2017, I got accepted into Berklee, where I’m studying composition. I want to get into composing and film scoring.

The Voluntourist: What else did you gain from the program, besides learning to play the piano?

Royce Martin: Amy Seibert was my first piano teacher. Before then, I was just playing piano by learning it off of YouTube videos. She was the nicest lady. It was piano lessons, but also almost like a therapy session. It just felt like a place to belong in the most clichéd way. I had never been able to talk on a personal level hours on end like that and have someone so interested in having me achieve something. That was what kept drawing me back to Pianos for People. It always felt like, beyond the piano, they were really interested in my personal life and helping me succeed. They would come pick me up from my house 30 minutes away and give me a free lesson and then take me back. Then I ended up going to piano camp in the summer of 2017 because they vouched for me at Pianos for People. The people I met, I can’t express it enough. Amy taught me how to drive. She would take me to the rural side of St. Louis County, where I’m from, and we would do driving lessons. She had this dedication to my success. And it wasn’t just her.

The Voluntourist: You’re an ambassador for them now. So maybe you’re helping another 16-year-old say to themselves, “Hey, I can do that too.”

Royce Martin: Yeah, that is almost precisely what I hope. When I was 16, I was really impressionable and looking for a community. I think a lot of people have similar experiences, especially young boys. Especially young black boys. I think it’s important for them to find that community. It was that sense of community that kept my head on straight and gave me
something to look forward to.

The Voluntourist: Tell me more about your staff and what kinds of things you do for your students, beyond the pianos and the lessons.

Jeanne Townsend: What we found is that the schools became much more than a piano school. They became community centers of sorts. We would get involved with the kids on a much more holistic basis than just teaching them piano. Each year, we had coat drives to make sure the kids had winter coats. In the summer, we have piano camps and we feed them
breakfast and lunch because often these kids aren’t getting the nutrition they need. When they needed rides, we would give them rides. When they needed clothes for a concert or a recital, we made sure they had the right clothes. We’ve helped kids go on AFS trips to Europe and South America. And we’ve helped kids with expenses once they leave us and go to college. We get to know the kids really well and their families. And the piano school on any given Saturday becomes a real place for the kids to be safe and their parents sometimes hang out there. They’ve formed parent groups. The holistic approach is a huge part of what we do.

The Voluntourist: How do you decide who to give the pianos to? On your site, you have thank you notes from children as young as 5. What’s your criteria?

Jeanne Townsend: If you can prove a certain income level and that your child or you are interested in pursuing the piano — because we do teach adults as well — we will give you a piano. My husband Tom was very interested in saving unwanted pianos and getting them in as many households as he could. He grew up in a household that had a piano and it changed his
life. And he firmly believed in the power of music to change lives and to heal. You don’t necessarily have to be a student of Pianos for People to receive a piano. For example, there was a person who was a Gulf War veteran who had PTSD. He applied for a piano, but he already knew how to play. We got him a piano and he played beautifully on it. He would send us videos. I remember one thank you letter we got one letter from an elderly man whose wife had died. He had played piano as a young man and he wanted to try doing that again, so we got him a piano. He sent us this lovely thank you note about how it was helping him in his grief process. All levels are people have applied, from kids to elderly people. We’ve also provided a lot of pianos to churches and nursing homes.

The Voluntourist: How can people help or volunteer for Pianos for People?

Jeanne Townsend: They can go on our website and call. We’ll gladly take your call and give you a volunteer opportunity if you’d like to help out. All of our teachers are paid, but we have had volunteers help out at the summer camps or work on our music library, or work on the garden outside. We do need and love volunteer help. We also give our older students the opportunity to volunteer or do something on a paid basis. Some of our older students help out with the summer camps. Our littlest kids start out in group lessons, so sometimes we have older students help out with the group lessons.

The Voluntourist: How has Pianos for People changed your life, Jeanne?

Jeanne Townsend: I think when my husband first came up with this idea, I didn’t quite understand it. And when it turned into what it’s turned into, it all became very clear to me how important this was to our community and how much good we were doing. He passed away in 2019 pretty suddenly and I just can’t thank him enough for his vision in coming up with this.
Most of the people who worked there over the years and people who’ve come into our locations, have called it “the happiest place in St. Louis.” It’s just a magical place. Because you can see the good that we’re doing on a daily basis is just palpable. You can see it in the kids’ faces and how much they open up over the course of a few months and the confidence they gain from going on stage and getting applause. You can just see these kids blossoming and it’s just so incredibly fulfilling. It’s also been a hugely important thing for our whole family. Now, with my husband gone, the fact that I and my two children can carry on his legacy has been such a gift. From the time we lost our son, he was very convinced that music has a great power to heal. And he’s absolutely right. I’ve seen it over and over and over again.

The Voluntourist: It must be so rewarding to see someone thrive like Royce, who now has a music education and potentially a career because of Pianos for the People.

Jeanne Townsend: Royce is probably the one who has gone on to study music in the most serious way. But not everyone we serve has to be a great musician. Tom firmly believed that everybody should have some sort of interaction with music and some opportunity to play. Whether they’re great talents or mediocre or not so good, they will all derive some benefit from it. So we celebrate our mediocre students as well as students like royce. Our program builds
confidence and self-esteem and things they can carry over into other aspects of their life. We love serving all levels of talent.

March 8, 2021 admin

How Burundi genocide survivor Stany Nyandwi is helping save chimpanzees from extinction

Stany Nyandwi has been fighting to save chimpanzees from extinction for 30 years and explains how he escaped a civil war to help rescue them.

By Heather Newgen

From his first interactions with chimpanzees, Stany Nyandwi had an intuitive understanding about them. He learned their pant- hoot language, their behavior and knows the primates so well Dr. Jane Goodall refers to him as the “chimp whisperer.” His work with the animals has been impressive from the start and Nyandwi plays an integral role in educating others about the importance of chimpanzees in an effort to stop their senseless killings, which you can see in the short film about his life Pant Hoot. But, Nyandwi overcame unbelievable circumstances and risked his life to save the chimps.

“Both my parents, brother and other family members died in the war. I had to leave to save the chimps from the war. I then got stuck in Kenya and wasn’t allowed back into the country. I left Burundi in 1995, two years after the war started, to save 20 chimpanzees to be taken to Kenya (Sweetwater’s sanctuary), as they would have died in the war. When I arrived there the war escalated back in Burundi and I couldn’t return to my family. I couldn’t talk to them for four years, and I didn’t even know if they were still alive. The chimps helped me through the difficult time, and somehow became my family,” he told The Voluntourist.

In an exclusive interview, Nyandwi discusses the Burundi genocide, how he fled the country and his passion for chimpanzees.

Image by Pant Hoot film

The Voluntourist: Why didn’t the rest of your surviving family relocate to South Africa with you?

Stany Nyandwi: I only started working with the Jane Goodall Institute South Africa- Chimp Eden in 2014, long after the war, and I do see my family, but my work, dedication and passion for chimpanzees often takes me on the road and long periods without going home.

The Voluntourist: Is your family still in Burundi?

Stany Nyandwi: Some of my sisters, but my wife and children are in Uganda.

The Voluntourist: How often do you talk to them?

Stany Nyandwi: With technology these days and a good wifi connection at the sanctuary I can speak to them every day.

The Voluntourist: Any chance of reuniting with them?

Stany Nyandwi: Yes, now I go home once a year for a month, but my help and experience is sometimes needed in other countries and that might change again in the future.

The Voluntourist: How did you escape Burundi?

Stany Nyandwi: On a small aircraft with the chimpanzees we had to save from the war.

The Voluntourist: At what point did you discover the gift you have with chimpanzees?

Stany Nyandwi: A few years after joining The Jane Goodall Institute in Burundi, I started going on rescue missions, and I remember we were looking for an infant chimp that was held illegally by community members that were trying to hide her under the bed so we couldn’t find her. I walked around the yard and saw small chewed fruit scraps and signs that a chimp was close by. We couldn’t find anything and thought they had moved her, and we were about to give up, when I decided to walk into the house again and pant
hooted. The chimp responded to me from under the beds and we were able to rescue her. It is then that I realised that I might have a gift to help these animals.

The Voluntourist: How did working with chimpanzees give you new meaning and purpose?

Stany Nyandwi: I realized how similar they are to us humans and that they feel all the emotions that we do, and make lifetime bonds with each other and with us. They have no voice to fight against humans, so I decided to fight for them.

The Voluntourist: How do you build a bond and trust with a chimpanzee?

Stany Nyandwi: It takes a lot of time and patience, and each one is different. You have to be able to understand not only their vocalizations but also their body language. If a chimp sees that you understand and want to help him, they slowly start communicating back and that, even for humans, is the start of building a relationship.

The Voluntourist: How are chimps similar to humans?

Stany Nyandwi: They share 98.7% of our DNA, they have unique fingerprints like we do, and they have different physical features, so no one looks the same, and they have unique voices. They share all of our emotions such as jealousy, anger, love, impatience and fear, etc. They tickle each other; they laugh, and give each other hugs and kisses.

The Voluntourist: Please explain what pant- hoot is and how important it is to use the correct one when communicating with chimps?

Stany Nyandwi: Pant hoot is the name that you can call their language, such as English or French. But there are so many different words in a language, that it all depends on the situation. For example, using the vocalizations for fear or danger will confuse them if you meant to use happy vocalizations. But we have to remember that together with pant hoot, they also read our body language. We can’t easily fool them.

The Voluntourist: What are some of the techniques you’ve developed to care for chimpanzees and how have those techniques helped others interact with chimps?

Stany Nyandwi: During escapes, it helps to know and use their language and vocalizations to defuse the situation, distract them, and convince them to do and go where you want. This is a technique I have used many times, but it all depends on which chimpanzee it is, and you have to be able to read them quickly and change your strategy. Integrating chimpanzees with each other is very difficult and takes a long time. You have to have patience and make use of an opportunity when it arises. I have developed many techniques and tricks you could say to make this process easier, which I train staff in.

The Voluntourist: Why is the work you do with chimpanzees so important to you?

Stany Nyandwi: Chimpanzees are our closest relative in the animal kingdom, and we can learn so much from them. We as humans have to stop destroying animals and their environment and start saving them. As Dr. Jane Goodall says: “If we kill off the wild, then we are killing a part of our souls.” To me, human redemption lies in saving the natural world.

The Voluntourist: Why are people killing chimpanzees and how close are they from going extinct?

Stany Nyandwi: People kill them for meat, witchcraft, entertainment, medical research and they kill many adults to steal the babies and sell them on the illegal pet trade markets.

The Voluntourist: How does The Jane Goodall Institute Chimp Eden sanctuary in South Africa help chimpanzees?

Stany Nyandwi: Chimp Eden rescues chimpanzees that have survived the bushmeat trade, some were ex-pets or from circuses and labs. The sanctuary gives them a second chance at a better life, with large natural enclosures, family members, good nutrition and importantly we educate visitors from all over the world and many school children on the importance of the environment and why we should change they way we impact the world around us. As our founder Dr. Jane would say “What you do makes a difference, and
you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

The Voluntourist: How do chimps find their way to the sanctuary? Are they released back into the wild or live at the sanctuary permanently? Currently 33 chimps live at The Jane Goodall Institute Chimp Eden. How many can the sanctuary take in?

Stany Nyandwi: The chimps are rescued through a network of people, sometimes just a concerned citizen that will contact the sanctuary. This will be their permanent home, these chimpanzees will not survive in the wild as they could take human diseases back to the wild populations and be a danger to local communities because they have lost their natural fear of humans, and on top of that, there isn’t much rainforest left. Humans are destroying their habitat for timber, agriculture, palm oil, etc. The sanctuary can accommodate many more chimpanzees, but we first need to fundraise to purchase the land that the sanctuary is on, to secure it for the future.

The Voluntourist: How does education play a role in eliminating extinction?

Stany Nyandwi: It is the only thing we can do to stop the extinction of many species. We need to educate our children so they do not become poachers, animal exploiters, and trophy hunters. We need to teach them that circuses that abuse animals should be closed down, wild animals shouldn’t be pets and that certain unnecessary cultural beliefs are killing the environment and in doing that we are destroying ourselves.

The Voluntourist: What is the reaction from local villagers when teaching them the importance of chimpanzees?

Stany Nyandwi: At first they are reluctant to listen and feel that these animals make life difficult for them, but with patience and education they realize they these animals are also just trying to survive and protect their families. The important work we do with animal wildlife conflict is not necessarily to make people love these animals, but just to live in harmony with each other.

The Voluntourist: What can others do to help chimps?

Stany Nyandwi: Support the important work sanctuaries like The Jane Goodall Institute South Africa is doing. Do not support products that exploit the environment such as unsustainable palm oil, tobacco and cosmetic products that are tested on animals, and in general to reduce our meat consumption and carbon footprint, and live more sustainably.

To learn more about Stany Nyandwi check out the short film Pant Hoot, which highlights his incredible work and journey.

December 29, 2020 admin

Just voluntourist