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Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through community service
January 16, 2015
This Monday, January 19, we’re celebrating the life and legacy of
Dr. Martin Luther King
and marking the national
MLK Day of Service
. It’s a holiday that’s especially meaningful this year: 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the
Selma to Montgomery March
, and it’s a time when civil rights is at the forefront of our national conversation.
Next Monday, Googlers across the country are heeding the call to give back to their communities, and we hope you’ll join us. Take some time to honor Dr. King by volunteering in your community—you can find opportunities at
All for Good
. In the meantime, here’s a look at some of the projects Googlers will be participating in, and the reasons why they’ve made the commitment to serve this MLK Day.
Dona Bellow, a legal assistant, will be helping middle school students in New York with computer science and STEM activities. She says, "doing something to help further the goals of someone else is reclaiming power: power to choose love over conflict, power to recognize and celebrate our differences, power to achieve an equitable outcome for all.”
In California, Googlers will be volunteering with the Northern California Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Foundation as it hosts
a full day of festivities
including the annual parade/march in San Francisco. Eliana Murillo, who is head of multicultural marketing and will be participating in Monday’s event, told us that “giving a hand to those in need helps build compassion and understanding of the diversity of life experiences.”
Leadership coordinator Aerica Banks says that she serves to ”break down barriers and build community. We are all able to serve, and we all stand to benefit.” She helped organize volunteers in our Atlanta office for the Atlanta Food Bank Kids In Need program event, which provides school supplies free of charge to teachers in low-income schools.
And Fabian Elliott, from our ads team in Chicago, helped organize Google volunteers in the Windy City to help middle school students practice compassion by writing letters to children struggling with terminal illnesses. He says, “Even the most obscure challenges of the world impact each of us at varying levels...It’s as simple as doing something that you love that supports a cause you believe in. What are you waiting for?”
Dr. King said: "Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?'" Googler volunteers are joining in the national efforts to honor the legacy of Dr. King—and we know that a commitment to service goes well beyond Monday. So we also
support projects
throughout the year to help to deepen our connections with local communities. Together, let’s make Martin Luther King Jr. Day “
a day on, not a day off
!”
Posted by Johanne Sterling, on behalf of the Black Googlers Network and GooglersGive
Let's celebrate the season of giving
December 19, 2014
It's the season of giving, and there are a lot of ways to give—by donating, by volunteering, by surprising a stranger with a random act of kindness. And we're joining in to help spread the
holiday cheer
. This month, Google.org is giving more than $15 million in grants to organizations using technology to address some of the world’s biggest problems. From San Francisco to Western Africa, these organizations are making a direct impact on people around the world, every day.
One of our grants will go to
Feeding America
. Each year, billions of pounds of surplus food are sent to landfills, while
49 million Americans
(including one in five children) go hungry. Our grant will help support their newest food rescue initiative called the Online Marketplace, a program that connects local retail and foodservice businesses who have excess food to those in need. Feeding America serves 3.3 billion meals annually and the Online Marketplace is projected to lead to the recovery of an additional 740 million meals, significantly reducing food waste while giving more families access to food.
Two of our other grantees are working on the front lines to help ensure lives aren't lost to preventable diseases.
Nexleaf Analytics
works to get life-saving vaccines to children in India and Mozambique by preserving these vaccines before they spoil by installing low-cost refrigerator sensors in clinics.
Malaria No More
is fighting to save lives by better understanding the spread of malaria using newly available mobile data to map malaria cases and how they are being treated.
To learn more about additional nonprofits we’re supporting through these grants, and to see how you can get involved with their efforts, visit
g.co/happyholidays
and see our slideshow below:
These are only part of our annual philanthropic efforts. Over the course of the year, we strive to make the world a little bit better through our technology and
giving programs
, including more than $100 million in grants, $1 billion in technology resources, and 80,000+ volunteer hours donated to causes around the world.
We're inspired by all the people out there who are working to make a difference—whether it's one of these organizations or simply one person doing a good deed for another. We're glad to do our part spreading some love this holiday season, and look forward to seeing more world-changing work in 2015.
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google.org
Ok Glass… Let’s celebrate Earth Day
April 22, 2014
Part of honoring Earth Day is celebrating the people who dedicate their lives to protecting our planet’s most vulnerable species. You’ll find one of those people in the tall grasslands of Nepal’s
Chitwan National Park
, where Sabita Malla, a senior research officer at World Wildlife Fund (WWF), is hard at work protecting rhinos and Bengal tigers from poaching. She spends her days collecting data about wildlife in order to track the animals, assess threats, and provide support where needed. Now, she’s getting help from something a bit unexpected:
Google Glass
.
Last year, WWF started exploring how smart eyewear could help further its conservation mission in the Arctic and the Amazon as part of the
Giving through Glass
Explorer program. Now they’ve brought it to Nepal to see how it could help monitor wild rhinos. Take a peek:
Rhino monitoring can be a slow process, especially in habitats with tricky terrain, but data collection is crucial for making the right conservation decisions. Most parts of Chitwan National Park are inaccessible to vehicles, so Sabita and her team ride in on elephants, and have been collecting health and habitat data using pencil and paper.
Now custom-built Glassware (the Glass version of apps) called Field Notes can help Sabita do her work hands-free instead of gathering data in a notebook. That’s helpful for both accuracy and safety when you’re on an elephant. Using voice commands, Sabita and other researchers can take photos and videos, and map a rhino’s location, size, weight, and other notable characteristics. The notes collected can also be automatically uploaded to a shared doc back at the office, making it easier to collaborate with other researchers, and potentially a lot faster than typing up handwritten notes.
This is just one example of a nonprofit exploring how Glass can make their critical work easier. Today, we’re looking for more ideas from you.
If you work at a nonprofit and have an idea for how to make more of a difference with Glass, share your ideas at
g.co/givingthroughglass
by 11:59 PDT on May 20, 2014. Five U.S.-based nonprofits will get a Glass device, a trip to a Google office for training, a $25,000 grant, and help from Google developers to make your Glass project a reality.
To learn more about Google.org's ongoing collaboration with World Wildlife Fund, visit
this site
.
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google.org
Global Impact Award to improve veterans’ higher education
November 13, 2013
When veterans return home, a college degree is often a great next step for a successful transition to civilian life. But college can be a tough place for veterans, especially when they’re juggling classes with personal, family and financial pressures. Unfortunately there’s very little data about what can help veterans thrive in school. We want to change that.
Today, we’re granting a $3.2 million
Global Impact Award
to the
Institute for Veterans and Military Families
,
Student Veterans of America
, the
Posse Foundation
and
Veterans of Foreign Wars
to support data analysis of U.S. veterans’ higher education. The study will be made public and answer critical questions:
Which colleges are most successful at supporting veterans through to graduation day?
What on-campus programs have the biggest impact?
How do veterans’ education majors stack up against employment opportunities?
Based on the report, we’ll fund the expansion of the veterans’ programs found to be most effective—whether it’s on-campus child care, access to dedicated mental health services or physical gathering spaces—and will also provide Googler support to make this project a reality.
This award builds on our work to train and mentor student veterans through the
Google Veterans Network
. We’re proud to serve those who’ve served.
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google Giving
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