In honor of their wedding, newlyweds Aviva Presser and Erez Lieberman wanted to do something different. The two Harvard and MIT PhD students were thinking beyond their big day. They wanted to spread their joy around.
So they founded a nonprofit organization, and named it "Bears Without Borders" in honor of their first project, making teddy bears for needy children in South Africa. They held a toy-making event resulting in nearly 100 teddy bears (materials kindly donated by Build-a-Bear) that were distributed at the Edendale Hospital Pediatric Ward and the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Orphanage, both in Marianhill, South Africa.
Next Aviva and Erez moved from bears to goats- live ones. They raised funds to purchase nearly twenty goats for families in Rwanda. Many of the families had lost heads-of-household during the 1994 genocide, and a pair of goats is a huge asset for them.
Able to graze even on poor, dry land, goats supply several quarts of milk a day - a tremendous contribution to malnourished children. Extra milk and cheese can be sold as well, generating income for the families. Also, goat manure can be used to enrich the soil so farmers can grow food for their families. To further the spirit of giving, the first kid born to a donated pair of goats is given away to another impoverished family.
Next: bears, goats... cows? No, BOOKS! Aviva and Erez are also collecting new or gently used books in English for Zulu children in hospitals in KwaZulu Natal. Want to help with any of their projects? Aviva and Erez can be contacted at a href="http://www.bearswithoutborders.org" target="_blank">www.bearswithoutborders.org.
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Make Mondays terrific!
Do a nice thing for someone, and you're going to feel great.
One nice thing on Mondays.
Join us and become a Nice-oholic. We'll tell you how, and who else is doing nice things. We want to hear your nice thing ideas too. To get nice thing news delivered to you, sign up for our weekly email.
A uniter, not a divider, we embrace everyone.
Working together, it's amazing what we can achieve!
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This Week's Nice Thing: Say Thank You
At www.LetsSayThanks.com you can pick out a thank you card, Xerox will print it, and it will be sent to a U.S. service member in Iraq. It's FREE and it only takes a minute. Thank you to Lea Ann Myers for this idea!
Do you know any Nice People? Sure you do!
Tell us about an exceptionally kind person you know. We'll put his/her story on DoOneNiceThing.com. We love to hear about people who do all kinds of nice things - big and small. Send us an email at [email protected].
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About DoOneNiceThing.com
Here are a few examples of what DoOneNiceThing Nice-oholics have achieved since they started in June 2005:
- More than 1,000 hand-made cards have cheered hospitalized children in Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, Memphis, Boston, St. Louis and Jerusalem.
- Hundreds of toys, games and art kits have been given to families living in homeless shelters.
- Thousands of emails, Girl Scout cookies and valentines have been sent to American service members.
- Hundreds of books have been given to schools, libraries and children's hospitals.
- Numerous people registered to become organ donors.
- Tens of thousands of cans of food, frozen turkeys, packages of pasta and other food items were donated to food banks for Thanksgiving and throughout the year.
- Hundreds of dolls, games, and other holiday gifts were donated for seriously ill children.
What's your nice thing? Tell the site at www.DoOneNiceThing.com and they will post it.
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