GIFTS TO GIVE THE BEAUTIFUL BACK
Today we are featuring gifts that give back. From gifts that restore our planet, to those who restore dignity, health, and hope, here are some of the most deeply beautiful gifts you can give right now.
Photo: Courtesy of Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Gulf Saver Bags.
THE ULTIMATE GIFT BAG
While the Restore the Earth Foundation calls it an UnGift, we think that their Gulf Saver™ Bag is one of the most beautiful gifts you can give. These gift bags will help to restore the Mississippi Gulf Coast Wetlands, still in recovery mode after the big BP Oil Spill in 2010.
Photo: Courtesy of Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Gulf Saver Bags.
Gulf Saver Bags help to replenish and protect native species in environmentally degraded areas, permitting them to take root, grow, and flourish.
Each Gulf Saver Bag comes packed with native wetland plants, its own supply of
natural nutrients, and billions of oil-eating microorganisms. The bag itself is biodegradable.
Photo: Courtesy of Restore the Earth Foundation. Gulf Saver Bag planting.
One acre planted with 1,000 Gulf Saver Bags, over time, restores more than 5 acres of wetlands and often supports the buildup of sediment for the creation of new land, where land is being lost daily.
It’s a gift of hope. Give directly, yourself. And gift a piece of hope for our planet in the name of family or friends to help restore the Gulf Coast to its original vitality and natural abundance.
 Photo: Courtesy of Restore the Earth Foundation. Great White Egret chicks.
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Since 2008, Restore the Earth Foundation has secured more than $6 million in Federal and State funding and $10 million in philanthropic and corporate donations to restore our nation’s southern wetland forests. They have successfully restored more than 35,000 acres with native trees in eight Mississippi coastal counties and nine Louisiana coastal parishes.
Give the UnGift Gulf Saver Bags today!
Photo: Courtesy of Orbis International. Child Screening in Flying Eye Hospital, Uganda.
GIFT OF SIGHT
Sight is a gift so enormous in scope and significance that we often take it for granted. Unfortunately, it is not one we universally share.
Your gift to ORBIS International can help them treat millions of at- risk, blind, and visually impaired people all over the world.
Photo: Courtesy of Orbis International.
ORBIS prevents and treats blindness through hands-on training, public health education, improved access to quality eye care, advocacy, and partnerships with local health care organizations.
Since 1982, ORBIS International’s’ efforts, along with 325,000 eyecare professionals, have helped over 23.3 million underserved people in 92 countries. It has changed their lives and it has changed the world.
Photo: Courtesy of Orbis International.
ORBIS relies on an active pool of roughly 500 volunteer faculty members to provide clinical and technical expertise at local hospitals and points of service.
Photo: Courtesy of Orbis International.
ORBIS’s local partners include hospitals, health centers, universities and training centers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), eye banks, and government health departments.
They are conducting long-term capacity building projects in Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Ethiopia, India, Jamaica, Nepal, Peru, Vietnam, South Africa, and Zambia. Additional projects are underway in many other countries around the globe.
Since people in places with the biggest need do not have access to modern hospitals and medical technologies, ORBIS brings it all to them via their Flying Eye Hospital, a one-of-a-kind ophthalmic surgical and training center located within a DC-10 aircraft.
Photo: Courtesy of Orbis International. Orbis Flying Eye Hospital.
ORBIS uses volunteer pilots from FedEx and United Airlines to transport the Flying Eye Hospital from one destination to the next.
Photo: Courtesy of Ubuntu. Lithemba Ntshaka, Doctor-to-Be
GIVE SOMEONE A LIFE
Give a township a doctor this holiday season.
Lithemba Ntshaka has two sick parents and not much else. He lives in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in one of the world’s poorest areas. And yet, he sees how good mental and physical healthcare can make all the difference to his life and the lives of those in his community.
He wants to become a doctor so he can give back too. And the Ubuntu Education Fund (UEF) is helping to make sure he has the support and the resources he needs to realize that dream.
Photo: Courtesy of Ubuntu.
Lithemba is not alone. Every child that comes to Ubuntu faces challenges so daunting that they could easily stop a giant. Yet UEF helps each child to rise to their challenges, and helps each child to triumph by creating individualized pathways.
Photo: Courtesy of Ubuntu. Zininzi Mama, Businesswoman-to-be
Zininzi Mama’s mama was pregnant and HIV positive when she first came to Ubuntu. UEF helped mama to deliver baby Zininzi virus-free. Now, standing tall, with her sharp suit, sassy attitude, and bag of magic tricks, Zininzi Mama is ready to conquer the world.
Photo: Courtesy of Ubuntu. Ubuntu center green tomato growing.
Ubuntu’s comprehensive interventions are focused on three key areas:
1. HOUSEHOLD STABILITY: UEF provides home security assessments and improvements, psychosocial support, food security packages, and drop-in classes that promote financial stability.
2. HEALTHCARE: Ubuntu clients can receive all of their medications, including antiretroviral therapy (ARVs), prenatal and postnatal care, testing, immunizations, nutritional counseling and more, at UEF’s Centre. Working within the UEF pediatric clinic and state-of-the-art pharmacy, diseases are treated before they develop to define children’s lives.
3. EDUCATION: The Eastern Cape’s education system is failing to equip children with the literacy, numeracy, and communication skills that they need to break the cycle of poverty. UEF provides additional programming to everyone from toddlers to university students to out-of-school youth.
Photo: Courtesy of Ubuntu. In the classroom.
UEF is proud to report that last month, their first class of Early Childhood Development students graduated and will begin first grade in January. Ubuntu will then be doubling the size of this program and working with 80 new toddlers.
Your gift to UEF will help change the world, not only for the people of Port Elizabeth, but for us all. Every $10 you give increases the lifetime earnings of an Ubuntu Scholar by $87 and results in $22 generated for society.
Photo: Courtesy of Life With One Eye Open.
Read more about Beautiful Giving, as it relates Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact in our posts throughout this week, including The Most Beautiful Books to Give, Beautiful Then & Always Gifts, Beautiful Gifts from the Heart & Hearth, Beautiful Giving Both Ways, Gifts for Beautiful Bodies & Minds, and Gifts for Beautiful Bodies and Minds.
Get busy and enter the BN Competitions, Our theme this week is Beautiful Giving. Send in your images and ideas. Deadline is 12.15.13.
Also, check out our special competition: The Most Beautiful Sound in the World! We are thrilled about this effort, together with SoundCloud and The Sound Agency. And we can’t wait to hear what you’ve got!
