If you’re looking for a restaurant recommendation, you log onto Yelp. Need a ride? Request an Uber or Lyft. Want the highest-rated doctor in your health insurance network? Try Zocdoc.
It’s undeniable that technology has changed the way we identify and select services. But which app connects you with legal aid to fight an eviction notice, helps you locate someone to assist signing up your kid for preschool, or directs you to a food pantry that’s open late?
Founded in 2010 in Austin, Texas, the startup Aunt Bertha is an online database of human services, connecting governments, charities and churches with the 75 million Americans in all 50 states who need their services, says founder Erine Gray. Thus far, his company has helped more than 177,000 people.
“In the United States, we spend a lot of money attempting to fix social problems — poverty, housing, food, health and job training — the effectiveness of which can be argued. When you look at the 1.4 million nonprofits in the U.S., how do you know which ones are good and which ones are not?” asks Gray. “Most people are not professional social workers. For somebody in need, it’s very difficult to find out what’s available to you.”
The software company’s name refers to no one’s relative in particular — the domain name for Aunt Sue was taken, and Aunt Bertha sounded like an eccentric, matronly figure in contrast to Uncle Sam — but the idea for the company did come from Gray’s personal struggles. After his mother suffered from a stroke, he encountered difficulties locating adequate assistance (she had lost brain functionality and required around-the-clock care). Even though she qualified for help, Gray’s mother was rejected by more than 20 nursing homes, often with a baffling, one-sentence letter that said, “We are not able to meet your mother’s needs” and no other explanation.
“There are nonprofits that offer home healthcare visits if you have income that’s low enough, but I didn’t know about those services when I was navigating my mom’s care. People come up to me after talks and say, ‘My son had autism and I didn’t have anybody to talk to about it until I found a support group,’ or ‘I lost my job and didn’t know about worker re-entry programs,’” Gray says. “As a caretaker for someone who was disabled, in my experience, nobody is trained for when life throws you a curveball.”
That trying experience led Gray to ditch his career as a software developer (he says he wasn’t a very good programmer anyway), go back to school for a master’s degree and eventually take a lead role at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Making software and operational fixes, he streamlined the application process for services, saving the agency $5 million annually. Soon after, he took those lessons and founded his own company.
With Aunt Bertha, a person in Gray’s situation should have an easier time determining if their dependent is eligible for a given program. Searches can be narrowed based on multiple categories, such as age group, citizen or immigrant, housed or homeless and how urgent the problem is.
“What we wanted was a simple way for a seeker — the term we use for a person in need or their relative or champion — to essentially raise their hand and let an agency know electronically they need help,” Gray, a GLG fellow, explains. “Part of the vision is being able to find and apply for services in seconds.”
Eventually, as more users enroll in programs, Aunt Bertha will be able to track whether the charity met the person’s needs. As soon as a seeker submits an application for rental assistance or hearing aids, say, through the online portal, the service will clock the nonprofit’s response time and follow up with a satisfaction survey, creating a granular picture that’s more detailed than what can be found on GuideStar or Charity Navigator. The assessment will direct users to sign up for more effective programs.
On a grand scale, the program is already helping governments and nonprofits (like the Robin Hood Foundation) assess needs and measure the results of their funding. “We can tell you what people are searching for, what they’re finding and also what they’re not,” says Gray. For instance, if the number of searches for soup kitchens in Lubbock, Texas, suddenly spikes, it could encourage city lawmakers to look at large-scale solutions.
“If we’re successful, the entire nation will be able to visualize, in real time, where the pain is in the United States and see the suffering in the underbelly that doesn’t really show. Policymakers and data scientists will be able to see hotspots far earlier than any set of economic forecasts,” Gray says. “To be able to unlock that data and get it in the right hands, would be an amazing experience. We’d be able, in real time, to alleviate that suffering.”
Tag: entrepreneurs
This Is How You Create a Successful, Equitable Economy
Time is the scarcest resource that we have, but it’s something everyone has access to it — whether you’re Bill Gates or a person living on the street.
This basic equality of time is the foundation for the online time banking platform TimeRepublik, which provides an alternative to the monetary economy. Anyone with an Internet connection and some type of skill can create an account with TimeRepublik, posting what talents she can offer or search for services that she needs. By giving time, participants fatten their digital “time wallet” with hours that can be cashed in later for something they need. Many exchanges cross international boundaries and most take place online, using tools like Skype or Google Hangout. When users exchange services in the same city, they often opt to meet face to face.
TimeRepublik co-founders Gabriele Donati and Karim Varini were childhood friends in their home country of Switzerland and spent a lot of time as teenagers and young adults at a remote mountain cabin rented by Donati’s parents. The two recognized that living without modern conveniences (there was no running water or electricity) led them to connect with people on a deeper level. Many long conversations led them to the conclusion that something was amiss in contemporary society — how value is assigned. Seeing that value really resides in human relationships, the two slowly formed an idea that eventually led to the creation of TimeRepublik.
Donati and Varini launched TimeRepublik in October 2014. Unlike some other time banking platforms, it does not evaluate the worth of various skills. An hour is an hour — whether it is from a graphic designer fulfilling a logo request or a dog walker helping a busy mom on a hectic morning.
“Everybody’s asking, you know, ‘what about the difference of value between the musician and the lawyer or the musician and the doctor,’” says Donati. “They tend to forget that what we’re trying to do is to try to scale trust more than trying to give value to things.”
Since TimeRepublik’s launch more than 30,000 people from 110 countries have shared approximately 100,000 talents. The company’s goal? To eventually create a secondary system of exchange that equally values everyone’s time, regardless of specific expertise.
“Everybody knows that trust cannot be bought,” says Donati. “Once you have established trust in a relation[ship], that’s when you can start changing things.”
The Story of One Website and How It’s Changing Social Services in America
For two decades, a 46-year-old Detroit woman named Dechiel endured physical abuse at the hands of her partner — violence that became so horrific that it resulted in her daughter’s death. After that loss, Dechiel sought refuge in a domestic violence shelter, where a local nonprofit helped her find a job designing specialized jackets. With newfound confidence, Dechiel began talking about going back to school, empowering other women, starting over. She was ready to move out of the shelter and into a new apartment, but one thing stood between her and independence: a $500 security deposit.
Dechiel’s scenario is one that plagues our systems of public assistance. Too often, a person who’s fallen on hard times stands to benefit from a government initiative or a charity’s work, but some seemingly minor obstacle stands in their way. A jobs program, for example, may connect the unemployed with work, but it doesn’t guarantee the willing worker any money to fix her broken down car so she can get to work, funds for childcare while she’s on the clock or pay for the clothing needed to blend in with the workplace’s informal dress code. For too many, help falls just beyond reach, a buoy thrown short of the drowning man’s grasp.
In two decades of social work in New York and Chicago, Megan Kashner had witnessed this problem time and again. Fed up with asking her director for money and being told that her agency didn’t provide that type of aid, she dreaded seeing the look on her clients’ faces as she forced herself to say, “I’m so sorry, we can’t.” It’s why Kashner founded Benevolent, an online philanthropic platform, to bridge the gap from where traditional services end and poverty truly begins.
The site is something like a Kickstarter for the underprivileged. Only with Benevolent, instead of backing your friend’s art-house indie movie idea, you can contribute to the essentials a person needs to function in society: the heat for a mother’s car in blustery Chicago, a laptop for an asylum seeker in San Diego or beds for a Detroit family sleeping on their floor while their father’s out of work (three examples of recently funded projects). To put it another way, government gives boots to the destitute, but this platform crowdfunds the actual straps by which they can pull themselves up.
“I have seen families fall through the cracks and away from their goals because they couldn’t get what they needed to take the next step forward, the things we take for granted,” says Kashner, Benevolent’s founder and CEO, a “ticked-off social worker” turned digital entrepreneur. In her opinion, “Today’s technology and the reality of crowdfunding is a total game-changer for that… Technological advancement, individual access and information will allow us to personalize how to help people get themselves out of poverty.”
In his or her own words, the individual seeking funding presents a pitch on Benevolent’s site. (A case manager provides a short verification as well.) The first-person narrative empowers users to talk about their circumstances and their aspirations, and in return, see that someone cares enough to listen (and hopefully, provide funding). The model is so important the Benevolent employees have even transcribed information phoned in from prison inmates that didn’t have access to computers.
Because the site is individualized, Benevolent can win over potential donors with compelling narratives, but it also leads to questions of whether handing over cash to each person is the most efficient use of funds. Could money be better spent buying goods in bulk, then distributing them? Kashner’s belief: A firm no. “Charity is not the answer to everything. The fact that people in low-income circumstances have trouble accessing equipment for work, let’s say, doesn’t mean that we need to have a new nonprofit that specializes in work gear,” she answers. Benevolent works, she says, because it focuses on targeted assistance. It gives a person concrete access to the next step, not a free handout they can repeat next week.
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“If we can help the woman who wants to be a phlebotomist [a medical assistant who draws blood], get subsidized childcare, secure housing and a quality education for the 18 months in school, then she might never need those services again,” Kashner argues.
Since Kashner came up with the idea of Benevolent in February 2011, the site has raised $270,000 (from 4,600 donors) for 578 people. Four benefactors fully funded Dechiel’s apartment deposit, and an update on the Benevolent website shows Dechiel smiling, proudly displaying her new keys, as she says she’s ready to move in and “move forward.”
In Kashner’s mind, the site is accomplishing something more important than funding a small number of the down-and-out. “Benevolent also exists to highlight and to bring to light the fact that these gaps exist. For example, right now, we see a lot of people moving into permanent housing. When they get there, they have no tables or chairs, no beds, no linens. It’s almost like they’re squatting,” she says. By documenting these trends in housing, transportation and employment, Benevolent may actually convince enough elected officials to create the systemic change that would fill these cracks.
“Our dream would be that this service would be unnecessary in the future,” Kashner says.
Charitable giving has transformed from a collection plate for the nameless poor to individual donations that go towards a hyper-specific need. For the first time, the platform empowers the recipient to speak about her situation and her future, not rely on what a donor says is best for her. With Benevolent, Kashner’s redefining philanthropy for the Internet age.
(Homepage image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
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From Empty Parking Lots to Bustling Stores: The Ingenious Way That Cleveland’s Improving Its Economy
Until recently, downtown Cleveland had a retail problem. Once anchored by eight department stores, lower Euclid Avenue and its offshoots had fallen from glamorous rival of New York’s Fifth Avenue to a nine square blocks of parking lots and numerous vacant buildings.
Retailers in the city’s historic Warehouse District struggled to keep up with their rent, finding their goods couldn’t fill the vast industrial warehouse spaces like trendy restaurants and popular nightclubs could. It seemed that mom-and-pop stores didn’t have a place downtown, and as a result, Victorian-era buildings were razed for parking lots.
But a creative idea by the folks at the district’s development corporation turned the area’s history as a center for wholesale storage and distribution on its head: They filled a large, ugly parking lot with three salvaged shipping containers. Fronting a busy sidewalk, each box now houses a miniature store, including Banyan Box and The Wandering Wardrobe, two boutique clothing stores, and an outlet selling paraphernalia for hometown football favorite, the Cleveland Browns.
“The way the project’s designed, they simulate a storefront wall, facing the sidewalk,” explains Thomas Starinsky, associate director of the Warehouse District Development Corporation. “They’re pretty simple. Take a shipping container and cut a hole in it.”
Perhaps because of its simplicity, the ingenious idea has worked. It’s diversifying the neighborhood and proving to other businesses that the district is a hip place to set up shop. Even during the winter, holiday shoppers turned out in droves. What was initially thought of as a risky bet has paid its rewards. Starinsky now has a waiting list with more than 40 businesses.
“The economic effects have been overwhelming, more significant than I imagined,” Starinksy says. “Just the fact that we have three new businesses downtown, and we’re actually adding jobs to the community with each 160 square feet.”
Small boxes, it seems, hold big commercial possibilities.
America’s Heartland: Where Innovation Is Taking Root
If Anheuser-Busch, the brewing company based in St. Louis that’s known for Budweisers and Clydesdales, held a hackathon, attendees would probably dream up the next big app for beer lovers, while overlooking the areas in real need of disruption, like water optimization.
That’s the thinking of Terry Howerton, CEO of the Chicago-based incubator TechNexus. Howerton joined Noah Lewis, managing director of GE Ventures, and Ting Gootee, Chief Investment Officer of Elevate Ventures at last month’s SXSW panel Reinventing America: Betting Big on the Heartland, which was moderated by Paul Noglows, executive producer of the Forbes Reinventing America Project. The conversation between investors making big bets on innovation in the Midwest was part of the Rise of the Rest road trip celebrating entrepreneurship across America.
Here, three important takeaways:
The Midwest is the next Silicon Valley.
The region has a higher density of Fortune 500 companies than anywhere else in the world, accounting for 19 percent of the country’s GDP, yet it receives just 5 percent of venture capital funding — making it a virtually untapped market that’s ripe for innovative thinking. “I really do believe we are going to solve the bigger problems – water, energy, healthcare, transportation. It’s not going to be about the next taxi app or the next Meet Up,” Noglows said.
The middle of the country isn’t lacking in entrepreneurial success stories.
For instance, ExactTarget, an email and mobile marketing technology company, was sold in 2013 to Salesforce for $2.5 billion. The panelists explained how co-founder and CEO Scott Dorsey, started ExactTarget in Indianapolis not only because that’s where he wanted to raise his kids, but also because employee loyalty was stronger there than in Silicon Valley, where the vast majority of his competitors were based.
But, there’s still big challenges preventing the Midwest from becoming an entrepreneurial hub.
The lack of direct flights, and venture capitalists being unwilling to deal with a layover or possible connection delay. To illustrate what a big deal this is, Noglows described how, at The Innovation Summit hosted by Forbes last year, the Indiana secretary of commerce got a standing ovation after announcing a new direct flight from San Francisco to Indianapolis.
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Suspending Students Isn’t Effective. Here’s What Schools Should Do Instead
A decade ago, 60 percent of students at one South Los Angeles middle school were suspended at some point during the school year. Out of 1,958 sixth, seventh and eight graders, 1,189 were written up for drugs, violence or class disruptions. But this zero-tolerance discipline policy didn’t have the desired effects. Troubled kids isolated themselves, academics lagged and enrollment sharply declined.
Led by a new principal and funded by a federal grant, Audubon Middle School and Gifted Magnet Center, an inner-city junior high school with one of the largest proportions of African-American students in L.A., joined the growing movement of implementing restorative justice in schools: Instead of simply penalizing misbehavior, the strategy involves talking through the reasons why a child is acting out. Prioritizing resolution over retribution, it’s all about keeping kids in school while maintaining the best learning environment. Audubon has taken the idea to a whole new level. Last school year, out of 827 middle school students, only 13 were booted from class — an astonishing 98.9 percent drop from 10 years ago.
In this community, too many African American and Hispanic students fall victim to a life of crime and end up imprisoned, says Kevin Dailey, a behavior intervention specialist with 31 years of experience at Audubon. “People are behind the gray walls because they don’t know how to communicate or because they didn’t have those supportive relationships,” he explains. “We have to do whatever we can to keep them out of that. Knowing how to communicate, how to listen and how to speak from the heart are very important.” In his mind, communication is the difference between being facedown on the ground in handcuffs and enrolled in college.
Restorative justice teaches those skills primarily through something’s known as a “peace circle.” After an incident — whether it be mouthing off in class or shoving a student in the hall — the kids in the classroom talk about what happened over cups of hot chocolate. Rather than referring to “the victim” and “the perpetrator,” which establishes permanent roles for the kids, the circles focus on the action — “the harm” — and how it affects both students. As a small totem is passed around (determining who can speak), all of the participants try to arrive at some consensus for how to address the behavior moving forward.
Sure, there may be consequences, but that’s no longer the focus. Suspensions are now used very selectively because educators don’t want kids to fall behind in their studies. If there is a serious problem, administrators now find it’s better to hold conferences with parents and, if necessary, refer the student to anger management classes or other counseling.
“I don’t know if this is the definitive terminology in the textbooks, but what we see in action is restorative justice means giving kids an opportunity to speak their minds, to listen to them and agree on the next step,” explains Charmaine Young, the school’s principal since 2012. “We’re taking the punitive power of the referral slip and getting to the why of the behavior.”
It’s also why Young encourages teachers to get to know kids outside of the classroom — so they can understand them as young people with personalities and ambitions, rather than just as students who perform well or falter academically. She believes that teachers need to balance academic instruction with social development, like a seesaw. A class can’t be all fun and games, but it also can’t be entirely lessons, Young says. Students are more willing to learn if they feel the teachers actually care about them personally.
That’s where the new policies come into play: if there’s a problem in class, teachers will tailor the response to a student’s unique situation, rather than worrying about getting back to the lesson plan. It’s why administrators no longer issue suspensions for not wearing a uniform, for example, and instead ask if the student’s family has money for the right clothes.
Restorative justice isn’t a new concept, but its adoption is gaining traction, particularly in the Golden State. Last year, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing required all new principals and administrators to receive training on positive school discipline, and in September, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the nation’s first law eliminating suspensions for young children (grades K-3) for minor incidents like talking back or showing up without school materials. Los Angeles Unified School District went one step further and said that no student in any grade should ever be suspended for “willful defiance,” a catch all offense (outside of two dozen specific categories like bullying and possessing drugs) that had been disproportionately targeted at minorities.
We must “change direction, keep all children in all schools and invest in restoring our children’s sense of purpose, despite so many institutions wanting to throw them away,” says Roslyn Broadnax, a core parent leader of CADRE, a group of minority parents with kids in South L.A. schools. “Over the past 10 years, we have begun to chip away at the belief that removing children of color from school for minor behavior, and leaving them vulnerable to harm and disconnected from the classroom, somehow improves our school safety and test scores.”
Recently, one boy in the after-school program at Audubon accidentally hit a fire alarm, disrupting a school site council meeting. A star basketball player, the youngster was worried he wasn’t going to be able to play in the upcoming league games. The very next morning, he arrived at the main office at 6:45 a.m. — more than an hour before the first bell rings at 8 a.m. — and sat in a chair waiting for the principal to arrive. “I just wanna know, Ms. Young, if I can have a cup of hot chocolate and explain what happened?” he asked. “Before you hear it from anyone else,” he added.
“Who does that?” Young wonders aloud. These are the kind of young adults Audubon is nurturing: kids who can own up to their mistakes or ask for help when it’s needed. Either way, the graduates will be students who know how to speak up for themselves.
Young points out a recent example of their success: Last year, the valedictorians at several L.A. high schools were all alums of Audubon.
One Man, His T-Shirts and an Honorable Mission to House Homeless Veterans
They had our backs. Let’s keep the shirts on theirs.
That’s the message inscribed on every piece of clothing made by Rags of Honor, a Chicago-based apparel company that employs homeless and unemployed veterans. In the time since Mark Doyle, head of a consulting firm and high school football coach, founded the business in September 2012, Rags of Honor has doubled the size of its silkscreen printing to 2,000 square feet and hired 18 employees — 15 of whom experienced homelessness. With a few large deals signed, particularly from Big Ten conference schools like New Jersey’s Rutgers University, the business printed and shipped 15,000 items last year, a number Doyle plans to increase by taking the brand national.
“My first stage is triage. Someone comes to me or I get a call that someone is in trouble or in the shelter. I hire them that day,” Doyle says. Having a job “change[s] the arcs of their lives.”
Witnessing firsthand the grisly day-to-day experience of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan while serving on a yearlong anti-corruption panel in 2010 prompted Doyle to help recent vets. “I watched billions spent building that country, while our veterans were living under bridges, in their cars and in shelters,” Doyle explains. That experience combined with his knowledge that both political campaigns and sporting events have a continual need for custom clothing made Doyle spring into action. “Driving home in my car one night, I said, ‘I’m gonna do something. I’m going to make a difference.’ I had absolutely no plan: no business plan, no marketing plan, no sales plan,” Doyle recounts. “The next morning, Rags of Honor was born.”
He went to a homeless shelter and hired his first four employees. A Marine Corps veteran helped train the crew on the machines, and a couple of willing restaurants gave them their first few orders. Registered as a low-profit L3C company, Rags of Honor produces T-shirts, long-sleeve shirts, hoodies, baseball hats and knit caps. You can purchase custom designs or the company logos repping the Second City (“Sweet Home Chicago“) or the Armed Forces (“Wear it like a badge“). All of its revenue goes to employees’ paychecks or is reinvested in the business, Doyle says.
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During a worker’s first few weeks of employment, Doyle pays for a bus card to and from the homeless shelter, but he vows to have each employee housed within three months. An associated nonprofit helps connects vets with beds, bath towels and other furniture they need for their new home — the first step in starting over. Workers also receive support from their coworkers, with whom they develop strong bonds through their shared experience as military veterans who are transitioning out of their own personal tragedies.
Tamika Holyfield, the company’s director of customer service, was a Navy gunner who spent two years in Afghanistan as a small arms weapons instructor. Back in the Windy City after being deployed, she struggled to cope with debilitating panic attacks while still raising her three boys. Unable to manage, she dropped her children off with relatives and lived in her car for seven months. “I would have the kids on the weekend and tell them we were going camping, because I had nowhere to go,” she says. Holyfield found Rags of Honor through an employment agency; Doyle hired her on the spot. “I am so happy,” she says of life, which includes living with her boys again. “Even my panic attacks are under control.”
Across the country, stories like Holyfield’s are all too familiar. The last annual survey counted nearly 50,000 homeless veterans, and many more are at risk of losing their homes. The struggle to readapt to civilian life caused unemployment rates among young veterans to peak at 29 percent in 2011. On the shores of Chicago’s Lake Michigan, as many as 1,000 vets experience homeless on any given night, according to Volunteers of America’s Illinois chapter. Last year’s point-in-time survey identified 721 homeless veterans on a single January night, a little over one-tenth of the total homeless population. One-third of the veterans — 256 homeless — had no place to sleep except outside on the streets.
Doyle says he still has little business experience in the competitive garment industry, but he has the strength of guiding principles to keep him from falling astray. “Give them a chance, and they can do everything,” he says of his employees. “I’ve hired the ones that probably no one is going to find, folks who’ve been out of work, gone through their savings and ended up in the shelter. They don’t have the means to get too many interviews or don’t have resumes, but I really believe in them.”
Doyle adds, “Two of the most profound words you can say to anybody are ‘You’re hired.’”
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How New Americans are Shoring Up America’s Economy
Walk down Main Street in your community and it’s likely that you’ll pass by a lot of immigrant-owned businesses.
In the new report “Bringing Vitality to Main Street,” the Council of the Americas and the Fiscal Policy Institute find that between 2000 and 2013, immigrant-owned businesses were responsible for all the net growth in Main Street businesses — from restaurants to hairdressers to auto body shops — throughout the U.S. and in 31 of the largest 50 cities in the country.
Immigrants own 53 percent of America’s grocery stores, 45 percent of its nail salons and 38 percent of its restaurants. Overall, immigrants own 28 percent of the Main Street businesses in America, even though they only comprise 16 percent of country’s population.
The authors of the report included businesses owned by both documented and undocumented immigrants in the study, zeroing in on three areas where vibrant immigrant communities have revitalized neighborhoods and cities: Philadelphia, Nashville and the Twin Cities.
Jennifer Rodriguez, executive director of Philadelphia’s Mayor’s Office of Immigrant and Cultural Affairs, tells NBC News that the report, “really tells a story of how hard-working they are and how they are contributors to our city, how they helped bring back neighborhoods that have been in decline.”
In addition to contributing to business growth, immigrants seem to be shoring up the housing market as well. Gillian B. White writes for National Journal that while millennials have so far proven to be less likely than previous generations to purchase real estate, buying a house is still a key goal for many immigrants. In fact, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, immigrants are responsible for 27.5 percent of the growth in homeownership over the past 20 years. Unlike their millennial counterparts from non-immigrant families, the children of immigrants account for the largest increase in the growth of households headed by people under age 30.
As Rodriguez says, “I often say that what is good for immigrants is good for everyone.”
MORE: To Fix A Neighborhood, Invite A Newcomer
Meet the Impressive Girl Who’s Working to Save the Planet Before Her 18th Birthday
Every once in a while, you come across one of those kids who’s extra special. Maya Penn is one of them.
At just age 14, Penn has been doing everything she can to achieve her mission of saving the environment. And with everything she’s accomplished so far, she just might do it.
Penn’s mission first took life six years ago when she started her own eco-fashion line Maya’s Ideas. Not only does she design the clothing and the accessories, she also makes them herself using organic cotton, hemp, bamboo, vintage silks and wools. According to Grist, 10 to 20 percent of her profits are donated to charities such as Live Thrive Atlanta and Captain Planet Foundation.
By age 11, the Canton, Ga., resident decided to expand her enterprise by starting Maya’s Ideas for the Planet, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
And if that isn’t enough, Penn has also given a TED Talk and written and illustrated two children’s books about the environment: Lucy and Sammy Save the Environment and Wild Rhymes. Her books are printed on recycled paper, thanks to a grant from The Pollination Project, on whose Youth Grantmaking Advisory Board she now sits. As a member, she assists in bringing to fruition environmental projects for youths.
“I think it’s really cool that I’m able to help other people,” she tells Grist. “It’s always been my goal to inspire youth.”
Her latest projects involves technology, and she’s actively developing an animated series on pollination.
So, how does she have time for all of this? Well, Penn is homeschooled giving her leeway in how she manages her time, but she believes that anyone can become involved — regardless of their schedule.
“The smallest action leads to the biggest changes,” she says. “It has a big ripple effect, whether that person knows it or not. And that person might have been scared and might have been doubtful. But they went ahead and did it anyway.”
So, if a 14 year old can do it, why can’t you?
MORE: Watch Neil deGrasse Tyson Give a First Grader Terrific Advice About Saving the Earth
Meet the ‘Entreprenurses’ Behind a Clothing Line That Benefits Low-Income Families
Two nurses working in a neonatal intensive care unit have dubbed themselves “entreprenurses.”
To help the babies and their families at the Broward Health Medical Unit in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Amanda Dubin and Kelly Meyer started a baby clothing company that helps needy families. Luc&Lou donates a onesie to a needy family for each one they sell and also supports nonprofits that benefit low-income families with newborns.
The design feature the tiny footprints of a 29-week-old infant that Dubin and Meyer cared for in the NICU. On one of the onesies, the footprints form the yellow rays of a sun and on another, a purple butterfly. “We were giving back to these little babies, and we wanted to really do it on a larger scale,” Meyer tells the Sun Sentinel.
Dubin says that they were inspired by the fighting spirit of the preemies they care for. “If they can do what they do, we can do anything.”
Now, Luc&Lou onesies go home with every “welcome to the world” package the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Broward County gives to low-income mothers of newborns. Sales from Luc&Lou products also benefit Fort Lauderdale’s Jack & Jill Children’s Center.
Meyer and Dubin have sold about 400 onesies so far and aim to expand. “We will always be nurses,” Dubin says. “That’s who we are. But we want to go bigger so we can help more people.”
MORE: How Texting Can Improve the Health of Babies Born to Low-Income Mothers