Do Something August and September American Express Grant Winners!
American Express and Do Something partner to bring weekly grants of $500 to help out projects addressing different causes around the world, from different people young people all around the country. Did you recently create a sustainable community action project, program or organization or have a great idea for helping your community? If you answered "YES!", you're eligible to apply for a Do Something Grant. Read about our winners from August and September below.
Tenille Howard, 20
Mentoring Children with Incarcerated Parents
Arizona has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the US, but the children of these incarcerated individuals are often forgotten, as children are left without parents and often without guidance as a result of this incarceration. Tenille has created a where student volunteers from ASU will help to bring in young people with incarcerated parents, and to provide them with mentoring and support which may be absent with their parents gone. Tenille hopes that through her efforts youth will choose the path of education and be more inclined to avoid prison or jail. Tenille will use her grant money to provide games, coloring books and snacks for the mentoring program.
Emily Smith, 17
Take Back the Night
Emily and her student-led team are running the annual Take Back the Night Event, an awareness event to open discussions about dating violence and domestic abuse among youth. One in three teens in a relationship is abused, whether it be physical, verbal, or digital, and one of the biggest problems with dating violence is that it is often not addressed. The event focuses on opening discussion and providing a way to talk about the issues. The night will include speakers, music, food, a candle light vigil, a speak-out, and the event concludes with a march around the town center as a visual demonstration. Emily will use her grant money to purchase custom fortune cookies whose “fortunes” are facts about domestic violence.
Brendan Laws, 21
CIW Speech at the University of Texas
Brendan is working to help the conditions of tomato-farm-workers in Florida, who often work in some of the worst conditions in the country. Brendan believes that if everyone knew of these awful conditions with very little pay then people would be more conscious about what they ate and where it came from. Brendan has already worked with his school’s administration to get all-fair trade coffee vendors, and is now moving for the same guidelines to apply to tomatoes. By hosting an event and bringing in workers to speak about their experiences and these conditions, Brendan hopes to inspire thousands of students to be conscious of these everyday choices in the food they eat, and to change what they eat because of how it impacts others.
Melissa Oppenheim, 20
One-for-All
Melissa is working to leverage technology for youth who are new to computers, both within the United States as well as abroad in developing countries. One Laptop per Child, is a program that delivers inexpensive XO laptops to children in developing countries; but often times the software and knowledge to use these laptops is missing when they are distributed. One for All is creating a best-practices laptop education and integration program for teachers and their students to include training packets, and curriculum to merge existing lesson plans with laptop software. Melissa and her group will use this to seamlessly integrate the XO into classrooms so that it can be more effective and used to its fullest potential. After testing the program as a pilot in Boston this fall, One for All will implement this model in Cuzco, Peru. Melissa will use her grant to purchase a laptop to train new volunteers on this software so they can then become tutors to use this program around the world.
Charlie Coons, 12
Hope, Encouragement, Love, Peace (HELP)
After hearing the first-hand account of her sixteen-year-old brother’s work in orphanages in Egypt, Charlie was inspired to take action. Charlie began making no-sew fleece blankets for orphaned children around the world. Beginning with the help of her friends, Charlie quickly built up a volunteer force to make blankets with the goal of bringing a sense of comfort to children with no home of their own. In less than a year Charlie has sent shipments to Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Honduras, Gaza, Jordan, and most recently to Rwanda. Charlie hopes that when these blankets arrive at orphanages in these countries they will bring a sense of hope, encouragement, love, and peace, to each of their recipients. Charlie will use her grant money to purchase more fleece for more blankets, so she can increase the number of children who receive these blankets.
Edward Jiang, 18
StudentRND
Edward and his friend co-founded StudentRND this past spring to unite science with real-life applications, so that teens could get involved with technology at a young age. The workshop seeks to provide youth with the opportunity to get involved with science simply by doing, StudentRND allows the youth to get hands-on experience to build robots, program, and collaborate with others. Edward envisions the Workshop Program like a library, an unstructured environment that lets teens learn more about science and technology by doing, in an atmosphere where nothing is wrong, only just experience. Edward hopes that by creating this level of freedom the students will develop the interest independently, and learn skills to succeed in technology later in life. By tracking their successes through their website, and allowing others to see that way, he hopes to engage an even larger community. Edward will use his grant money to purchase supplies for these technologies such as motors, and robotic parts, to create this unique hands-on experience.
Linda Liu, 18
Planting Hope
In an effort to address the connections between hunger, poverty, and disease Linda and Project Hope are working to implement a new drought-resistant high vitamin C plant in poverty stricken Burkina Faso. The plant has already been tested in Burkina Faso where HIV/AIDS rates are extremely high, but the new plant has the same fruit, which has proven tasty, however the new strand has bigger fruit for higher yields. Working with a grassroots organization already established in Burkina Faso, Linda and her organization will ship the seeds, help in tutoring in how to grow these specific crops, while also providing fencing to ensure that these plants reach maturity. While at home, Linda and her group will work with an extensive fundraising campaign to allow this project to grow and become sustainable. Teaching her community about the importance of hunger, poverty and disease, and her efforts to help each of them.
