CHARITIES

These are the charities that the boys support through Change for the Children.

“YOU Decide. YOU Donate.” is the first initiative of The Change for the Children Foundation. We have selected 5 amazing charities and we’re leaving it up to YOU to decide which to support. Once YOU Decide, YOU Donate. YOU! With your money saved from your paper route, your allowance, recycled cans or maybe a loan from mom and dad (remember to pay them back! This is about YOU helping to change the world!) So, look around the site, learn about these great charities and let’s make a Change for the Children.

That is the from the mission statement of . To visit the Change for the Children site, click HERE.

Here are the Charities that the program supports:

Nothing But Nets
Mission: Nothing But Nets is a grassroots campaign to save lives by preventing malaria, a leading killer of children in Africa. While the UN Foundation has been working with the UN to fight malaria for years, it was a column that Rick Reilly wrote about malaria in Sports Illustrated, challenging each of his readers to donate at least $10 for the purchase of an anti-malaria bed nets — and the incredible response from thousands of Americans across the country — that led to the creation the Nothing But Nets campaign.
Why Make A Contribution?: Save children in Africa from the fast killing disease. Studies have shown that effective nets around a child’s bed help protect them from malaria.
Vist the Site: HERE

American Diabetes Association
Mission: Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy needed for daily life. The cause of diabetes continues to be a mystery, although both genetics and environmental factors such as obesity and lack of exercise appear to play roles. There are 23.6 million children and adults in the United States, or 7.8% of the population, who have diabetes. While an estimated 17.9 million have been diagnosed with diabetes, unfortunately, 5.7 million people (or nearly one quarter) are unaware that they have the disease. In order to determine whether or not a patient has pre-diabetes or diabetes, health care providers conduct a Fasting Plasma Glucose Test (FPG) or an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT). Either test can be used to diagnose pre-diabetes or diabetes. The American Diabetes Association recommends the FPG because it is easier, faster, and less expensive to perform. With the FPG test, a fasting blood glucose level between 100 and 125 mg/dl signals pre-diabetes. A person with a fasting blood glucose level of 126 mg/dl or higher has diabetes. In the OGTT test, a person’s blood glucose level is measured after a fast and two hours after drinking a glucose-rich beverage. If the two-hour blood glucose level is between 140 and 199 mg/dl, the person tested has pre-diabetes. If the two-hour blood glucose level is at 200 mg/dl or higher, the person tested has diabetes.
Why Make A Contribution?: Help by supporting children dealing with diabetes
Vist the Site: HERE

St. Jude’s Children Hospital
Mission: St. Jude is unlike any other pediatric treatment and research facility. Discoveries made here have completely changed how the world treats children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. With research and patient care under one roof, St. Jude is where some of today’s most gifted researchers are able to do science more quickly. St. Jude researchers are published and cited more often in high impact publications than any other private pediatric oncology research institution in America. St. Jude is a place where many doctors send some of their sickest patients and toughest cases. A place where cutting-edge research and revolutionary discoveries happen every day. We’ve built America’s second-largest health-care charity so the science never stops.
Why Make A Contribution?: Help by finding cures and saving lives of children.
Vist the Site: HERE

Hospital for Children in Los Angeles
Mission: Childrens Hospital Los Angeles is the largest regional referral center for children in critical condition who need life-saving care. While most of the children admitted to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles come from Los Angeles County, others come from the seven-county area near Los Angeles that includes Kern, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties and around the world.
In order to do this, the hospital:
* Treat more than 62,000 children a year in our Emergency Department alone
* Are designated as a Level I Pediatric Trauma Center by the Los Angeles County EMS Agency
* Operate one of the largest dedicated neonatal/pediatric transport program in the nation, annually triaging more than 3,000 patients using a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter, a charted Lear jet and other means of transportation
* Admit more than 11,000 children a year to the hospital, with almost 50-percent of those admissions children under the age of five
* Triage more than 287,000 visits a year to the 29 outpatient clinics and laboratories at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles ” nearly 2,800 visits at community sites through the Division of Adolescent Medicine
* Perform more than 13,900 pediatric surgeries a year, including more than 850 cardiothoracic surgeries (heart, lung and heart-lung transplants), 550 cardio-catheterizations; 650 neurosurgeries; and 1,570 orthopaedic surgeries.
* Maintain one of the most active and productive Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) centers in the United States, providing long-term cardiac and/or pulmonary bypass support for infants and children who are in life-threatening cardiac or cardio-respiratory failure – those who would likely perish without this extraordinary method of life support to allow precious time to heal and recover – in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit.
* Provide innovative therapies for high-risk infants transferred from other hospitals throughout Southern California and beyond.
* Maintain the only dedicated, separately staffed pediatric Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit on the west coast
* Provide 35 pediatric critical care beds, more than at any other hospital in the western United States.
Why Make A Contribution?: Donate to the international leader in pediatrics!
Vist the Site: HERE

Summer Stars: Performance Arts Camp
Mission: A non-profit organization devoted to providing economically disadvantaged 12-15 year-old kids from all across the United States with a no-cost opportunity to discover themselves and their potential through the arts. The camp offers small group programs in
improvisational acting, blues performance, dance,musical theater, choral singing, set design, juggling, drumming, and music video production.
Vist the Site: HERE

More Charities have been added. As we know, Nick has Diabetes Awareness as his special charity. Joe has chosen Special Olympics as his awareness and Kevin has chosen Volunteerism. Click below to view their special pages:
-Joe’s Page
-Kevin’s Page (Sponsored by DoSomething.Org)