Students at Ramaz Upper School in NYC are donating their copies of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, a story about the innovative William Kamkwamba, to Goods for Good, who will deliver them to Chankungu Secondary School in Malawi. By donating their books, these students will share William’s inspirational story with students in Malawi who face similar hardships and give them hope for a brighter future.
This is such a wonderful opportunity for both schools. Many thanks to the students at Ramaz!
Goods for Good matches excess goods from the U.S. with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world.
Accord to an article by the The Ecologist, commercial textile waste has risen to more than 1 million tons in recent years, rising from around 7% of total waste five years ago to 30% of total waste today. The retail and wholesale sector alone produced 12.7 millions tons of waste, half of which went straight to the landfill.
MPs in England are looking to rush a ban on certain materials being sent to the landfill and recommend laws that will require retailers to publish details of their waste prevention strategies, including exactly how they plan to engage in waste reduction.
The enormity of this kind of waste is truly deplorable, especially considering the alternatives. Beyond the obvious environmental damage that such dumping causes, if used correctly, the materials being thrown into landfills have the possibility to change lives. In a place like Malawi, this suprlus can mean the difference between a child receiving an education or not.
50% of children in Malawi dropout of school by the fourth grade; many do so because they can’t afford basic school materials, including a $3 required school uniform. Goods for Good provides surplus fabric to vocational training programs that teach Malawians marketable tailoring skills. In just two years, these tailors-in-training have created over 22,000 school uniforms for children in their community out of 33,000 meters of fabric that would have otherwise gone to waste. As a result, thousands of children are attending school more regularly, report increased self-esteem and motivation, and hundreds of community members have a valuable income generating skill.
How You Can Help - Ask your favorite companies to donate their excess fabric or trimmings to Goods for Good and advocate on our behalf within the industry. Donors receive a tax write-off for all donated materials and free up valuable warehousing space.
Click here to read the full article.
Goods for Good matches excess goods from the U.S. with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world.
Goods for Good and Afya Foundation, a nonprofit supplying medical support to health initiatives worldwide, are working together to provide support to displaced residents in one tent-camp, three orphanages and a hospital on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Goods for Good is providing School Packs, which include a Johnson & Johnson tote bag, pens, and notepads, to 1,500 children in need. The School Packs are intended to help these children cope with the recent disaster by expressing their emotions through writing and art.
The shipment will be leaving for Haiti tomorrow.
Goods for Good matches excess goods from the U.S. with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world.
Malawi: Images of Progress, a photography exhibit and auction by Brian Marcus to benefit Goods for Good, was a huge success! On February 1st, over 500 guests came out to Chelsea Art Museum to view Brian’s series of photographs from his March 2009 trip to Malawi with Goods for Good. With your help, we raised over $51,000 to benefit orphans and vulnerable children in Malawi and Haiti.
Check out pictures from the event here and a video here
* It’s not too late to order one of Brian’s beautiful prints from the exhibit. You can view the images on sale here and place your order through Fred Marcus Photography by contacting 212.873.5588 or brianmarcus@fredmarcus.com. Make sure to order soon- they will only be available until Monday, Feb. 22nd! Proceeds from print sales will benefit G4G.
Goods for Good matches excess goods from the United States with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world.
Didn’t get a chance to order prints at the event? It’s not too late to get one!
Until Monday, February 22nd all of Brian’s beautiful prints from his Malawi: Images of Progress series are available by order. To order a print:
1. View images from the exhibition here
2. Choose a print and a size. 11×14 = $125 / 16×20 = $250 / 30×40 = $500
2. Place your order through Fred Marcus Photography by contacting 212.873.5588 or brianmarcus@fredmarcus.com
3. Proceeds from your purchase will benefit Goods for Good’s programs in Malawi as well as rebuilding efforts in Haiti
Goods for Good matches excess goods from the United States with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world.
This past Sunday, five wonderful volunteers from Rotaract International came out to Goods for Good’s warehouse in New Jersey to help us sort and organize goods for our next shipment. All said and done, we packed over 3 pallets of children’s clothing that will be delivered to our program sites in our next shipment to Malawi.
Many thanks to Ali, Nicole, Feruza, Sumit and Wadri for their help - we couldn’t ask for better volunteers! Sign-up here to join us at our next packing party.
Goods for Good recently employed Green Forest Sustainability Solutions to determine the environmental impact of sending excess goods to needy places such as Malawi. While the materials we send are clearly made useful in the hands of our beneficiaries, we wanted to know exactly how environmentally friendly our model is.
After reviewing the carbon footprint of G4G’s model, the environmental analysis report concluded the following:
The shipment of donated materials to Malawi was one-sixth as intensive with respect to carbon emissions than local disposal. In other words, donation is the preferable option with respect to carbon footprint.
Goods for Good matches excess goods from the United States with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world.
Yesterday we received a wonderful surprise in the mail from Kids Who Do Kare, a group of outstanding kids from Burlington, CT that participates in various charitable fund-raising activities. In just one day they raised $211 for Goods for Good by caroling around their neighborhood! Many thanks to Morgan, Allison, Julia and all the other Kids Who Do Kare for your motivation and generosity. Your group is truly inspiring and will go along way in helping other children around the world. Keep up the amazing work!
When G4G launched our Match 4 Good campaign on December 1st our goal was to raise $20,000 by the end of the year to help fund our Tailor-in-Training Workshop, a program that teaches Malawian tailors how to create new school uniforms for orphans and vulnerable children in their communities. Just $1 is enough to fund 1 new uniform to help keep a child in school. Merck hopped on board and generously matched all donations up to $10,000, meaning that your donations towards Match 4 Good had twice the impact.
Now here it is December 31st, and we are very excited to announce that with your help, Match 4 Good raised over $30,000 surpassing our goal by $10,000!
Thank you to everyone who helped support this initiative. Whether you donated your money, time or talents, or helped spread the word about this cause, your generosity will ensure the continuance of important programs like this one.
We wish everyone a wonderful New Year and hope that 2010 will be filled with more successes like this one.
Goods for Good matches excess goods from the United States with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world.
