If you’ve ever been to Israel you know that there are two vegetables that are an integral part of the local diet — cucumbers and tomatoes. This melange of red and green can be found at every meal in a dizzying array of recipes. For our friends at Kaima, the organic sustainable farm that works with young people who have not succeeded in traditional learning environments, successfully growing the winter crop for their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) has been a challenge over the past few winters when unusually cold temperatures have prevailed in the Jerusalem hills. When Kaima’s dynamic founder, Yoni Yefet Reich, asked if the Good People Fund could underwrite the cost of a 300 square meter onsite greenhouse to protect the young plants we knew this would be an excellent investment of the tzedakah entrusted to us by our donors.

Sure enough — Yoni reports that this critical addition to Kaima’s fields has been a resounding success. In fact, in one day alone, more than 76kg (that’s almost 170 pounds) of cukes were harvested! In addition to the bumper crop, one of Kaima’s young participants is responsible for all of the activities connected to the greenhouse –a job requiring significant  talent and commitment — the very things Kaima instills in its participants.                                                                                                                                                                  

Imagine being poor; imagine being poor and enduring the death of a newborn baby. How do you not only overcome that loss but also provide a proper burial for your child when funds are in such short supply?

Jeannie Jaybush, the founder of Seattle Baby Bank has been caring for the city’s most vulnerable new babies for decades. Typically she provides all of the “fun stuff” we think about when discussing baby needs–diapers, bottles, onesies, a Teddy Bear, a car seat. But–sometimes she learns of cases like this, situations where a baby has died and the family does not have the means to provide a proper resting place. When she learned that the other children in the family were willing to forego Christmas gifts in order to have enough money to give their baby sister a proper resting place but had come up short, she reached out to us. Could we help?

As Jeannie wrote: Losing the baby was bad enough, but the added stress of the unmarked grave is unacceptably brutal. There have been far too many unmarked graves in this world. It has to stop somewhere—and if it has to start someplace I guess it’ll be here. We can’t treat people this way.

Indeed, Jeannie, we cannot treat people this way and for that reason, with the help of our donors, the Good People Fund sent Jeannie a check for $709.48; just the amount needed to provide a proper gravestone for this little girl who never had a chance to grow up.

There are times that a short video clip can best describe the essence of a program far better than all of the words we might write. That is the case with this piece we just received from Gloria Baker Feinstein, founder of Change the Truth. The lives of children living at St. Mary Kevin’s orphanage in Uganda were irrevocably changed when Gloria visited years ago. As she writes, there is an abundance of poverty, loss, and sorrow, but with the help of CTT kids now receive love, an education and most of all, hope for the future.

Watch it; in 90 seconds or sooner you will be smiling.

Change the Truth