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The Northern Advocate

End of days explored through theatre

Climate change, homelessness, Brexit, the bombshell election of President Trump. For

Hawke’s Bay Today

70-year-old man clocks up 1280km

When you’re about to hit 70 years of age, riding eight laps and clocking up 1280 kilometres

Bay of Plenty Times

Disability-friendly viewing platform to open

A brainwave by former TV personality and newsreader Tom Bradley has blossomed into the

30, 2016) The GoodGiving Guide Challenge, a local charitable campaign that was started six years ago by Smiley Pete Publishing and the Blue Grass Community Foundation, will raise money for two University of Kentucky programs Child Development Center of the Bluegrass and Shoulder to Shoulder Global. Since its inception, the GoodGiving Guide Challenge has raised $5.5 million for local charities.

Founded on the idea of informing the community of the work local nonprofit organizations do, the fundraising program’s goal is “to partner with the individuals, businesses and nonprofits to grow charitable giving that makes our community a better place to live, learn, work and play,” said Lisa Adkins, CEO and president of Blue Grass Community Foundation.

Also returning to the campaign is Shoulder to Shoulder Global (STSG), a sub-unit of the UK International Center, which seeks to improve the health and well-being of impoverished and underserved communities globally.

A local group is aiming to restore the 77-year-old building to its former glory as a center of activity for the community. A local group is aiming to restore the 77-year-old building to its former glory as a center of activity for the community. 4, 2016 photo, Nick Dinges talks about an upstairs area at the Sublette Community Building that was cleaned out, painted and used as a VIP area for a recent dueling pianos event at the center in Sublette, Ill. Dinges and a local group are aiming to restore a 77-year-old building to its former glory as a center of activity for the community. A local group is aiming to restore the 77-year-old building to its former glory as a center of activity for the community. (AP) A local group is aiming to restore a 77-year-old building to its former glory as a center of activity for the community.

Sublette-365, a nonprofit founded a few years ago to promote village projects and events, is looking to raise $75,000 to renovate the Sublette Community Building, which was built in 1939.

“Our goal is getting the building back in the shape it needs to be in,” said organization President Nick Dinges, lieutenant with the Sublette Fire Department.

Interest in restoring the building began several years before the fundraising campaign, when a group of residents donated $8,000 to repaint the interior and refinish the auditorium floor.

Dinges said they installed new energy-efficient windows and doors along with a new furnace after gathering about $40,000 in grant funds, and a new septic system was installed about a month ago for $5,000.

Next on the list of renovations are constructing upstairs bathrooms, installing a handicapped-accessible ramp, water-proofing the basement, and laying new basement flooring and a new drop ceiling.

The campaign kicked off in late October and raised about $13,000 in the first week on top of $26,000 from Sublette-365 and $5,000 from the building’s board of directors, leaving about $31,000 left to reach their fundraising target.

Dinges said the building had served as the focal point for community events including dances, plays, talent shows, meetings, reunions, and weddings and church receptions.

It also featured a bowling alley in the lower level, where his father was a league member.

“It’s something that’s very unique, and we want it to have many more years to come,” he said. “So many people have so many good memories of the building.”

From the building’s bowstring trusses to the loft overlooking the main floor, Dinges said people are drawn by the “coolness factor” of the facility.

The group hopes to have much of the renovations completed by Dec. 31 to host the village’s annual New Year’s Eve dueling pianos party in the Community Building.

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Source: Sauk Valley Media.

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Information from: Dixon Telegraph, http://www.saukvalley.com

This is an AP-Illinois Exchange story offered by Sauk Valley Media.

16

Where: Drop off location is 300 Willow St., Hallsville

Cost: $5 per gift or $3 per gift if customer provides the paper

Information: (903) 668-5994

With the Christmas season just around the corner, schedules can get busy and time is of the essence. The Hallsville ISD Education Foundation again is looking to help out Christmas shoppers with their gift wrapping needs while also raising a little money.

Now through Dec. 16, the Hallsville ISD Education Foundation has set its second annual Christmas Gift Wrapping Services, which benefits the foundation’s Grants to Teachers program.

“It’s a wonderful way for you to cross gift wrapping off of your to-do list,” the foundation’s Executive Director Beth Godsey said. And, your packages will be beautifully wrapped, you will save time, and the kids benefit.”

The gifts can be dropped off at Godsey’s office and a time and date will be set for the wrapped presents to be picked back up. The customer can pick out a color scheme for the gift wrap or a preferred style.

“This year, I’m also doing a free pickup and delivery service in the Hallsville area for those who might not be able to get out and bring them to us,” Godsey said.

Gift wrapping costs are $5 per gift if using the foundation’s wrapping paper and $3 per gift if customers supply their own gift wrapping paper.

Gifts can be dropped off at Godsey’s office at 300 Willow St.

Despite the valuable work of many brands, it seems that many of the more agile, innovative solutions are coming from a new player in the fashion field: social entrepreneurs.

This was one of the key drivers behind Fabric of Change, an initiative launched by Ashoka and C&A Foundation to source, support and accelerate innovations for a fair and sustainable apparel industry. This three-year initiative is unlocking the unique power and potential of social entrepreneurs and their solutions to transform the apparel industry as a force for good.

Rooted in the perspectives of Ashoka Fellows and additional insights from industry experts, the Fabric of Change Social Innovation Mapping uncovers the barriers to and design principles for transformative change within the apparel industry.

Download the report to uncover these groundbreaking patterns for designing solutions that unlock system level change.

Fabric of Change is now working to support, spotlight and accelerating social innovators and their solutions to these barriers.

The Fabric of Change report found that at the heart of fashion’s sustainability problem was a visual obstruction; brands, consumers and regulation agencies simply can’t look back to supply chains and see where products come from. Even brands that invest in monitoring their supply chains “obtain only irregular and inaccurate information”.

Learn more: Ashoka Fellow Kohl Gill, founded LaborVoices to address the lack of transparency in global supply chains and the absence of voice for workers around the world

Looking at the profiles of the 5 factories housed in Rana Plaza and their 3639 workers, serves to illuminate trends in the industry more broadly. We must transform a broken supply chain into a web of collective responsibility.

Ultimately the challenges facing the fashion industry are complex and multifaceted: the incentives of contemporary capitalism are intertwined with the challenges of development and the vulnerabilities of low income populations. Fabric of Change identifies, supports and give visibility to leading social innovators creatively and collaboratively tackling social and environmental issues within the apparel industry. Sector partners are crucial in enabling the impact and acceleration of these social innovators together we can transform the apparel industry and spark a global movement for change.

Learn more about Ashoka and C&A Foundation’s Fabric of Change Initiative here, or follow the conversation on Twitter at #FabricOfChange

What are the barriers to creating transformative change in the apparel industry?

Awarded as part of the foundation’s Good Companies, Good Jobs Strategy, the unrestricted legacy grants include $4 million to the Aspen Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program to launch a Good Companies, Good Jobs Initiative that will build on the foundation’s Good Companies @ Work program and resources, including its Good Companies, Good Jobs Data Reporting and Analytics Tool.

In addition, the foundation awarded $4 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management in support of the Institute for Work and Employment Research and a new Good Companies, Good Jobs Initiative that will work to identify, develop, and advance management practices that are good for both business and society; and $3 million to Investors’ Circle (IC) in Durham, North Carolina, in support of that organization’s efforts to integrate the foundation’s Entrepreneurship @ Work assets into its early-stage entrepreneur and impact investor programs.

The foundation will close its doors on December 31 as a result of Hitachi, Ltd.’s decision to restructure its global corporate social responsibility programs to be more region-specific and better aligned with the company’s focus on social innovation.

“Anchored in these three remarkable institutions, we have an opportunity to build something that far exceeds the sum of its parts,” said Hitachi Foundation president and CEO Barbara Dyer. May 17, 2016 Acumen Launches Fund to Tackle Poverty in America
November 23, 2014 People in the News (11/23/14): Appointments and Promotions
April 13, 2014 Hitachi Foundation, Partners Launch Initiative to Address Social Problems
April 28, 2012 Taubman Foundation Awards $1.25 Million to Arts Groups
July 18, 2011 Business, Poverty, and a New Value Equation

Carrie Morgridge’s ‘Every Gift Matters: How Your Passion Can Change the World’, book offers tips on the art of gifting – The Financial Express.
Carrie Morgridge’s ‘Every Gift Matters: How Your Passion Can Change the World’, book offers tips on the art of gifting
Philanthropy is not just about donating, it is a combination of giving with the head and with the heart, says a new book which emphasises gifts which can maximize impact. (Reuters)

Philanthropy is not just about donating, it is a combination of giving with the head and with the heart, says a new book which emphasises gifts which can maximize impact.

In “Every Gift Matters: How Your Passion Can Change the World”, American philanthropist Carrie Morgridge with her actionable advice and touching stories tells how to leverage gifts of time or money regardless of size and make them work harder, work smarter, and have a bigger impact on the community.

The book, co-written by John Perry and published by Greenleaf Book Group Press, offers specific tips on how to make informed decisions through stories of the Morgridges’ personal experiences.

Morgridge says she wrote the book to “inspire, guide, and encourage people to take the first step, whatever it might be”.

Micrograam Social Innovation Case Study Opening Financial doors for India’s Rural Enterprises – by Fedrick-14153776 – Newsvine Rural micro-entrepreneurs, typically in agriculture, dairy or sectors like craft, are often cash-starved and unable to avail of microloans as products are not customized to their needs, carry exorbitant interest rates and have rigid repayment schedules which do not take into account the vagaries of business or the seasonality of their cash flows.

Micrograam offers customized lending solutions that take into account the nature of borrowers’ occupations and quantum and frequency of income

The Challenge: Rural micro-entrepreneurs and access to finance

Despite the huge employment generation opportunity through small entrepreneurship in rural India, only 4.7% of small entrepreneurs have any access to institutional credit; the rest of them rely on the informal sector for finance. It provided enough inspiration for Varadan to start a micro-lending platform that could nurture micro-entrepreneurship in small towns and villages across India and do this by solving the fundamental hurdles posed by traditional financial inclusion options.

“Access to low-cost credit with its multifold impact is the key to ensuring financial inclusion and improving the lives of millions of people” Rangan Varadan

Social Product Innovation: Micrograam A transparent, affordable online financial marketplace for rural India

Micrograam is a crowdsourcing micro-credit platform that leverages technology to empower entrepreneurs in India’s rural hinterland with access to loans.