March 10 (Day 10) "By the touch of a finger behold the world."

Seedlings Braille Books for Children

"By the touch of a finger behold the world."

In 1984 when Debra Bonde founded Seedlings, braille materials were scarce and expensive. Her goals were to increase the availability and lower the cost of braille books for children in order to promote their literacy skills and the love of reading. In 1985, the first year of book production, Debra made 221 books in her basement office. By 1990, Seedlings was producing 5,000 books per year, which precipitated its move out of Debra's basement and into the Bentley Center in Livonia, Michigan, and eventually to our present location on Farmington Road in Livonia. In 2008, with a small staff, and a group of loyal volunteers, Seedlings produced over 22,000 braille books and articles, with a grand total of 277,000 since 1984, equaling over 13 million pages of braille!

In 1994, Seedlings added The Rose Project, which provides encyclopedia articles in braille for student's projects and reports. The Rose Project has become a very popular resource for students eager to work independently. We anticipate requests for approximately 800 articles per year. Thanks to generous donations from our supporters, this service is entirely free to visually impaired students in grades 1-12.

Seedlings' Books
Seedlings braille materials have opened up new worlds for thousands of children. Seedlings Braille Books for Children is keeping visually impaired children in the mainstream of popular literature and is reaching braille readers in all 50 states and several foreign countries. Seedlings contributes to literacy by providing visually impaired children equal opportunity to develop the love of reading. At this time, less than 20% of the 50,000 blind children in the United States are proficient in braille. All too often, the written word has been inaccessible to them, and this is what we are hoping to change.


Braille books are provided at each level of development, from toddler board books to classic literature for older children. Just as sighted children learn to "read" as they are exposed to the printed word, so do visually impaired children who are exposed to the tactile page at an early age. New titles are added every year as highly skilled volunteer braille transcribers spend countless donated hours translating print books into braille and preparing them for computer disk to await production. Once the original translation is complete, additional books can be printed as needed. Exposure to popular, high quality braille literature throughout childhood increases the likelihood of children developing into able braille readers.



Seedlings' Funding
As a non-profit organization, Seedlings sells its books for considerably less than it costs to make them. Support is very broad based and comes from individuals, philanthropic groups, corporations and private foundations. Seedlings receives no government or United Way funds. Thanks to hundreds of generous donors and dedicated, hard working volunteers, the price of Seedlings' books remains far below actual production costs, averaging only $10 per book.

Click on their website http://www.seedlings.org/donate.php to see the many ways you can help! 




















Source:  Seedlings Website
Related Links:  http://www.seedlings.org/

March 9 (Day 9) - Skip A Lunch & Save A Life

TODAY'S OPPORTUNITY PUTS THINGS INTO PERSPECTIVE!

FOR THE COST OF THE AVERAGE LUNCH OUT, YOU CAN SAVE THE LIFE OF A CHILD.

From their website:

Although $10 for a bed net may not sound like much, the cost makes them out of reach for most people at risk of malaria, many of whom survive on less than $1 a day. Nets are a simple life-saving solution.

- Each year, malaria afflicts approximately a half-billion people (roughly the population of the United States,
   Canada, and Mexico combined).
- Malaria kills more than a million people per year; 90 percent of those who die are African children.
- Every 30 seconds in Africa a child dies of malaria.
 
Visit the website http://www.nothingbutnets.net/its-easy-to-help/ and see the different ways in which you can help.  You can donate to purchase nets, you can become part of a fundraising team or you can start your own fundraising team or choose one of the other ways to help.  Take a look at their toolkit and see which opportunity best suits you.   Is this the opportunity for you?  Are you able to help? 
 
 
Don't forget, you can e-mail any opportunity listed to a friend by clicking on the envelope icon.

March 6 (Day 6) - Help Wanted: Young Artists Needed!

Color A Smile is a great way for budding young artists to get involved in helping others.  This is a great project for younger children or classrooms and there is very little cost to participate.  The only cost is for postage to mail the masterpieces.  Color A Smile  is a non-profit organization spreading smiles with cheerful drawings. 

from the website:

Color A Smile collects crayon drawings from school children. Every month we distribute these drawings to Nursing Homes, Meals on Wheels Programs, and Individuals all across the country. Our goal is to make people smile!

Visit the website http://www.colorasmile.org/  to see how you can participate.  They do ask that all artwork match certain criteria (no get well messages) and you can even download coloring pages to color and send.  It can't get much easier than this!   If you know of anyone who might benefit from receiving artwork, you can submit their name on the website. 

March 5 (Day 5) - Easter Baskets for Homeless Kids

Families now make up 40 percent of the country’s homeless population. Within these families, more than 1.3 million children are homeless at some time each year. On any given day, at least 800,000 Americans, including about 200,000 children, find themselves without a home.

Homelessness is a growing problem in America and a large segment of the homeless population is families with children.  There are many things that you can do to brighten the lives of homeless children - our idea for today is to provide Easter Baskets to children at your local homeless shelter.  This is a great way to involve your children in giving to others.  Easter is a month away so start by contacting your local homeless shelter (you can use the widget below to locate a shelter in your area)  and ask them if you can provide Easter baskets for the children at the shelter. The shelter will tell you how many children they currently are housing, make sure to make a few extra just in case.  This is something my sister and I did with our kids several years ago.  We were able to obtain low cost easter baskets (Dollar stores are great places to find these items) and filled them with candy and small toys.  I believe we created 19 baskets and it made us feel so good when we dropped the baskets off at the shelter.  Small gestures like this can go a long way toward helping children maintain a sense of normalcy and routine in a very difficult situation.

March 3 (Day 3) Donate Your Shoes

Soles 4 Souls is "changing the world one pair at a time."   What an awesome charity providing new and gently used shoes to those who need them. Most recently Soles 4 Souls has been making a difference by providing shoes to earthquake victims in Haiti and Chile.  Make sure you check out their website at www.soles4souls.org and take a look around at all they are doing.  If you have 1 or 2 pairs of shoes to donate, click on the participation location link, put in your zip code and stores accepting individual donations in your area will display.  They also can provide you with information on how to host a shoe drive if you would like to help in that way.  You can also use your cell phone to collect funds for Soles4Souls! Through Mobile Giving, you and others can simply text the word SHOES to 20222 and donate through your mobile carrier!

from the website: 

Soles4Souls has a simple concept: we get shoes and give them away. Soles4Souls is a Nashville-based charity that collects shoes from the warehouses of footwear companies and the closets of people like you. The charity distributes these shoes free of charge to people in need, regardless of race, religion, class, or any other criteria. Since 2005, Soles4Souls has given away over 7 million pairs of new and gently worn shoes (currently donating one pair every 9 seconds.) The shoes have been distributed to people in over 125 countries, including Kenya, Thailand, Nepal and the United States.

March 2 (Day 2) - CHRISTMAS JARS

This is a simple project which is great for families wanting to share lessons on giving with their children.  Find or purchase an empty jar (many families make a tradition of decorating the jar together) and every day each family member dumps their change into the jar. As you continue to dump your change in the jar on a daily basis, the fund continues to grow. On Christmas day, you give the jar to a needy person or family anonymously.  Many who have participated in this tradition will tell you the giver receives so much more than the recipient.   

Check out the novel by Jason Wright which has really helped to inspire this tradition for many families.  You can also go to his website http://www.christmasjars.com/main.php to read or share stories of Christmas jar miracles. 

I have started my Christmas jar and I am looking forward to giving it away this Christmas!

March 1 (Day 1) - Click for Breast Cancer

Since this is my first post, I thought I would start out with something simple.  Please visit the Breast Cancer Site at http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/  and make sure you click on the "click here to give" button to help fund mammogram screenings for women in need.  This is paid for by the advertisers who display ads on the page. This is such a simple way to help... Let's make sure we visit this site everyday and click the give button.  You can see a breakdown of where women were helped (by state) on the results page. 

Some facts about breast cancer:

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among American women, after skin cancer. Today, approximately 1 in almost every 8 women (13.4%) will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. Breast cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death in women after lung cancer -- and is the leading cause of cancer death among women ages 35 to 54. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2009, approximately 192,370 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and approximately 40,610 will die. Although these numbers may sound frightening, research reveals that the mortality rate could decrease by 30% if all women age 50 and older who need a mammogram had one.

From the site:

Your clicks count! Last year, visitor clicks funded 2,808 mammograms (down from 2008, which was 3,315). Purchases at The Breast Cancer Site store funded an additional 4,178 mammograms for women in need (down from 4,262 in 2008). Let's get those click numbers back up in 2010! Please click every day and tell others about The Breast Cancer Site! Since The Breast Cancer Site began in 2000, together we have funded free mammograms for more than 18,000 women in need through clicks alone!

Don't forget to come back everyday to see another way to help.