Marshawn Lynch joins Seahawks DE Cliff Avril to build school in Haiti - ESPN.com

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  Sheil KapadiaESPN Writer

Seattle Seahawks defensive end Cliff Avril led a trip last week to improve conditions for some children in Haiti.

Avril, whose parents came to America from Haiti in the 1980s, was joined by Marshawn Lynch, Detroit Lions linebacker Stephen Tulloch and Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive tackle Gosder Cherilus.




Lynch has been retired for a little more than two months. During that time, he has ridden on camels in Egypt, dunked on a student and hung out with Bill Clinton, in addition to the Haiti trip.

"It’s awesome to have their support, it’s awesome to be in a situation where guys are willing to take that step with you," Avril told the Seahawks' web site. "Marshawn wants to help actually build the school out there. There’s a lot of good guys in the NFL ... It’s cool to have these guys’ support."

In addition to building the school, Avril and the players were scheduled to host a mobile medical clinic and a youth football camp.

Back in November, Avril spoke at length about passing on to his children the lessons he learned from his dad. The 30-year-old pass-rusher has spent the past three seasons with the Seahawks after beginning his career with the Lions.

My Brother's Keeper Initiative - www.whitehouse.gov/my-brothers-keeper

President Obama launched the My Brother’s Keeper initiative to address persistent opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color and ensure that all young people can reach their full potential.

Through this initiative, the Administration is joining with cities and towns, businesses, and foundations who are taking important steps to connect young people to mentoring, support networks, and the skills they need to find a good job or go to college and work their way into the middle class.

My Brother’s Keeper is focused on six milestones:

1. Getting a Healthy Start and Entering School Ready to Learn:
All children should have a healthy start and enter school ready – cognitively, physically, socially, and emotionally.

2. Reading at Grade Level by Third Grade:
All children should be reading at grade level by age 8 – the age at which reading to learn becomes essential.

3. Graduating from High School Ready for College and Career:
All youth should receive a quality high school education and graduate with the skills and tools needed to advance to postsecondary education or training.

4. Completing Postsecondary Education or Training:
Every American should have the option to attend postsecondary education and receive the education and training needed for the quality jobs of today and tomorrow.

5. Successfully Entering the Workforce:
Anyone who wants a job should be able to get a job that allows them to support themselves and their families.

6. Keeping Kids on Track and Giving Them Second Chances:
All youth and young adults should be safe from violent crime; and individuals who are confined should receive the education, training, and treatment they need for a second chance.

Learn more about the My Brother's Keeper initiative.


Get Involved

My Brother’s Keeper Community Challenge

In September 2014, President Obama issued a challenge to cities, towns, counties and tribes across the country to become “MBK Communities.” This challenge represents a call to action for all members of our communities, and mayors in particular, as they often sit at the intersection of many of the vital forces and structural components needed to enact sustainable change through policy, programs, and partnerships.

The MBK Community Challenge encourages communities (cities, rural municipalities, and tribal nations) to implement a coherent cradle-to-college-and-career strategy for improving the life outcomes of all young people to ensure that they can reach their full potential, regardless of who they are, where they come from, or the circumstances into which they are born. Nearly 200 mayors, tribal leaders, and county executives across 43 states and the District of Columbia have accepted the MBK Community Challenge.

The six goals of the Challenge are:

• Ensuring all children enter school cognitively, physically, socially and emotionally ready
• Ensuring all children read at grade level by 3rd grade
• Ensuring all youth graduate from high school
• Ensuring all youth complete post-secondary education or training
• Ensuring all youth out of school are employed
• Ensuring all youth remain safe from violent crime

Community leaders can lay the groundwork for an MBK Community in four steps:

• Accept the President’s Challenge
• Convene a “Local Action Summit” to build an MBK Community
• Conduct a policy review and form recommendations for action
• Launch a plan of action, next steps and a timetable for review

Two Years of My Brothers Keeper




Since MBK’s first anniversary report a little more than one year ago, more than 50 additional communities have accepted the My Brother’s Keeper Community Challenge, including those in seven new states, independent private sector support for grants and in-kind resources has more than doubled to more than $600 million, and more than 80% of the recommendations the MBK Task Force sent to the President two years ago are complete or on track.

This report tracks progress achieved in the past year on efforts to make a measurable difference in the lives of young people.

This report is available at: www.whitehouse.gov/my-brothers-keeper

Sign Up to Be a Mentor.

Commit to making a difference by pledging to mentor a young person in your community. 

Get started at Serve.gov/mentor

“Paparazzi For Good” Cameras Paid to Catch Average Folks in Acts of Kindness - www.goodnewsnetwork.com

“Paparazzi For Good” Cameras Paid to Catch Average Folks in Acts of Kindness

by Terry Turner - Mar 8, 2016

A sausage-maker is getting paparazzi to refocus their cameras away from celebrities to the real stars of this world — people who do good for others.

Amateur photographers, like you, can also get paid the big bucks for snapshots – earning $500 for capturing the best weekly picture of someone committing an act of kindness.

Jimmy Dean launched “Paparazzi For Good” to pay professional celebrity photographers their going rate to capture images of everyday people helping others.

Professional photographer Giles Harrison captures shots of a man who cleans his local beach and a chef who hands out food to the homeless. The company will use the images in ads splashed across magazines that that mainly cover the rich and famous such as US Weekly and People.

“Looking back on the pictures I took today it fills me with a sense of passion, a sense of purpose,” the paparazzo says of his change of pace assignment.

Paparazzi For Good, part of Jimmy Dean’s “Shine it Forward” campaign, was extended to the general public last Friday and the company says it will choose the best photo of the week and pay $500 for the submission.

You can post your pictures of people doing good to their website, or just post on social media with the hashtag #ShineOnPics.

Photos so far include images of a man who runs a horse rescue operation, people collecting used medical equipment to donate to others, and a Boy Scout simply changing a flat tire for a friend’s parents.

Chef Wins Reality Show and Uses Money To Feed Chicago Homeless - www.goodnewsnetwork.org

Chef Wins Reality Show and Uses Money To Feed Chicago Homeless

By McKinley Corbley - Mar 6, 2016

Thanks to his winning a recent reality television show, Quentin Love can open his big heart to all the big appetites in the Chicago homeless community.

Every Monday for the last two years, Love’s restaurant, the Turkey Chop Grill, would close for business and fire up their grills for anyone in the city in need of a hot meal. With the help of a weekly team of volunteers, Love has paid nearly $2,000 a month out of pocket for over 60,000 free meals.

The compassionate business model, however, was not sustainable enough to keep going on its own.

That’s when Guy Fieri called with an invitation to compete for a $36,000 prize on the Food Network reality television show Guy’s Grocery Games.

It was a gamble, but Love won the action-packed competition and not only used half of the prize money to continue feeding hungry Chicagoans in need, but he also donated the other half to the United Services Organization.

Whether this kind, talented, and good-looking chef is single, we don’t know – but we do know that the Turkey Chop Grill will stay open for business and continue to be a hot spot for the homeless.

Soup Kitchen Disguised as Cafe Offers Side of Dignity to Kansas City Poor - www.goodnewsnetwork.org

Soup Kitchen Disguised as Cafe Offers Side of Dignity to Kansas City Poor

There’s no waiting in line at this soup kitchen where food is served with plenty of humanity.
The staff takes your custom order right at your table and brings healthy meals even if you don’t have a dime in your pocket.

The Kansas City Community Kitchen feeds the city’s hungry in a restaurant setting. When someone comes in off the street for a hot meal, they’re met by a greeter who takes them to a table where a waiter takes the person’s order.

It sometimes catches the homeless off-guard.

“It’s different,” Brian Oglesby told the Kansas City Star “They’re treating me good, like they don’t know I’m homeless.”

The kitchen staff whips up healthy fare based on the ingredients they have for the day, and the presentation on the plate looks like what something from an upscale restaurant.
Substitutions are no problem. The Kitchen can make changes to meet health, dietary, or religious requirements.

The selections are low in sodium and high in nutrients — an effort to reduce the cases of hypertension, diabetes, and expensive hospital visits for the homeless.
The people behind the project have something more than just food on their menu — they want to find jobs for the homeless.

Episcopal Community Services, which runs the kitchen, offers volunteers a six-month training program in culinary arts. The final two months, they work in restaurants as interns — with requirements that they receive a minimum wage of $13 an hour.

Kansas City isn’t the only American city using this model to feed the hungry. Masbia—which means “to satiate” in Hebrew—is a three-kitchen network in New York City serving healthy kosher food to the poor in a setting that runs exactly like a cafe, except without requiring payment, in Brooklyn and Queens.

Digging Out of Debt - SmartMoney.com

by SmartMoney.com Staff

THE SECRET to paying off credit-card debt is really very simple: All you need to do is earn more than you spend, and apply the savings toward paying down your debt.

So then what makes tackling credit-card debt so hard? Sadly, many seem to be losing the battle of the credit-card balance. Consider that 57% of all credit-card holders carry a balance, according to CardWeb, an industry tracker. And among families that have at least one credit card, the average balance is a staggering $9,313. Ten years ago it was $4,301.

"People are out of control," says Howard Strong, a consumer attorney and author of "What Every Credit-Card User Needs to Know." "They're out buying love at the malls." And they aren't succeeding. According to a recent survey of 1,500 consumers by Consolidated Credit Counseling Services, a whopping 71% said debt is making their home life unhappy.

Part of the problem is that the credit-card companies have made it easier than ever to carry a balance. "People are addicted to minimum-payment crack," says Steve Rhode, co-founder of Myvesta, a debt-counseling service. (Click here for other costly credit-card tricks.) But many fiscally responsible people can also find themselves woefully in debt after some sort of personal crisis, such as a divorce, illness or the loss of a job.

So what are the warning signs that your credit-card debt has changed from nuisance to crisis? For starters, if you think that you might be having a problem, then you probably are, says Rhode. Generally speaking, your debt-to-income ratio (not including mortgage payments) shouldn't exceed 20%, which means that you shouldn't be devoting more than 20% of your net monthly income to paying off credit cards and other nonmortgage debt. Other signs of trouble, according to Gerri Detweiler, author of "Slash Your Debt," include:

· Only being able to make the minimum payments on your debt.

· Maxing out several or all of your credit cards.

· Frequently charging items with the intention of paying them off at the end of the month, but then finding that you're financially unable to do so.

· Using credit cards for everyday purchases like groceries.

· Using credit cards to pay for things you know you can't afford.

· Worrying that people close to you will find out just how deep in debt you really are.

If the creditors are calling or if your credit report is already suffering due to late payments or bills that you've been unable to pay at all, then you probably should consider visiting a credit counselor. But if your credit rating remains intact and you're feeling disciplined, you should be able to dig yourself out of this hole on your own. Here's some advice:

Get a Grip

The first thing you need to do is figure out just where you stand financially. This means knowing how much you owe (and how much you're paying for it) as well as how much you've saved. In other words, you need to know both your net worth and your cash flow. Ultimately, you're going to have to come up with the ever-dreaded budget, so you can know just how much you have to spend and how much you can use to pay down your debt each month. Based on your answers, our calculator will give you a reasonable estimate of when you can kiss that debt goodbye — and how much it will cost you before you do.

Debt Maneuvers

Many consumers have the option of swapping their credit-card debt for some other lower-interest debt, either through a home-equity loan or by borrowing from their 401(k). If the reason you've run into debt problems in the first place is a unique circumstance — a job layoff, for example — then a home-equity loan may be a smart thing to do. (We generally think you shouldn't tap your 401(k) except as a last resort.) But if you're a chronic charger, you're better off avoiding these approaches. After all, you'll be substantially worse off if you simply rack up that credit-card debt once again, while also putting your home or your retirement at risk.

Assuming you're going to stick with your credit-card debt, then the first thing to do is to call up your lenders and demand a lower rate, says Detweiler. This can be remarkably effective: With one five-minute phone conversation, 56% of consumers who called their credit-card company were able to lower their annual percentage rates, according to a recent study by the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group. Those who were successful were able to reduce their rate by as much as one-third, from an average of 16% to 10.47%. The success rate was affected by how long the customer had held a particular card, the amount of debt they were carrying in relation to their credit limit and whether or not they had a history of late payments.

Other strategies? Experts recommend that you focus on the card that has the highest interest rate first. That said, if you're the type who seeks immediate gratification, then you might want to start by tackling the card with the smallest balance for the satisfaction of seeing one of your debts paid off.

Rolling your debt over to a lower-rate card can also save you some money, although make sure that you use the extra savings to pay down your debt more rapidly. And don't think you can roll over your balances indefinitely — once the credit-card companies know your game, you'll find that the offers for balance transfers have dried up.

To avoid temptation, you should also probably remove your credit cards from your wallet. (Some credit counselors even go so far as to recommend that you freeze them in a block of ice in your icebox. That should slow down the impulse buying.) Instead, carry a debit card or a charge card like a standard American Express, which forces you to pay off the balance in full each month.

France to force big supermarkets to give unsold food to charities - The Guardian (www.theguardian.com)

France to force big supermarkets to give unsold food to charities

 According to official estimates, the average French person throws out 20kg-30kg of food a year – 7kg of which is still in its wrapping. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

French supermarkets will be banned from throwing away or destroying unsold food and must instead donate it to charities or for animal feed, under a law set to crack down on food waste.

The French national assembly voted unanimously to pass the legislation asFrance battles an epidemic of wasted food that has highlighted the divide between giant food firms and people who are struggling to eat.

As MPs united in a rare cross-party consensus, the centre-right deputy Yves Jégo told parliament: “There’s an absolute urgency – charities are desperate for food. The most moving part of this law is that it opens us up to others who are suffering.”

Supermarkets will be barred from deliberately spoiling unsold food so it cannot be eaten. Those with a footprint of 4,305 sq ft (400 sq m) or more will have to sign contracts with charities by July next year or face penalties including fines of up to €75,000 (£53,000) or two years in jail.

“It’s scandalous to see bleach being poured into supermarket dustbins along with edible foods,” said the Socialist deputy Guillaume Garot, a former food minister who proposed the bill.

In recent years, French media have highlighted how poor families, students, unemployed or homeless people often stealthily forage in supermarket bins at night to feed themselves, able to survive on edible products which had been thrown out just as their best-before dates approached.

But some supermarkets doused binned food in bleach to prevent potential food-poisoning by eating food from bins. Other supermarkets deliberately binned food in locked warehouses for collection by refuse trucks to stop scavengers.

The practice of foraging in supermarket bins is not without risk – some people picking through rotten fruit and rubbish to reach yoghurts, cheese platters or readymade pizzas have been stopped by police and faced criminal action for theft. In 2011, a 59-year-old father of six working for the minimum wage at a Monoprix supermarket in Marseille almost lost his job after a colleague called security when they saw him pick six melons and two lettuces out of a bin.

Pressure groups, recycling commandos and direct action foraging movements have been highlighting the issue of waste in France. Members of the Gars’pilleurs, an action group founded in Lyon, don gardening gloves to remove food from supermarket bins at night and redistribute it on the streets the next morning to raise awareness about waste, poverty and food distribution.

The group and four others issued a statement earlier this year warning that simply obliging supermarket giants to pass unsold food to charities could give a “false and dangerous idea of a magic solution” to food waste. They said it would create an illusion that supermarkets had done their bit, while failing to address the wider issue of overproduction in the food industry as well as the wastage in food distribution chains.

The law will also introduce an education programme about food waste in schools and businesses. It follows a measure in February to remove the best-before dates on fresh foods.

The measures are part of wider drive to halve the amount of food waste in France by 2025. According to official estimates, the average French person throws out 20kg-30kg of food a year – 7kg of which is still in its wrapping. The combined national cost of this is up to €20bn.

Of the 7.1m tonnes of food wasted in France each year, 67% is binned by consumers, 15% by restaurants and 11% by shops. Each year 1.3bn tonnes of food are wasted worldwide.

The Fédération du Commerce et de la Distribution, which represents big supermarkets, criticised the plan. “The law is wrong in both target and intent, given the big stores represent only 5% of food waste but have these new obligations,” said Jacques Creyssel, head of the organisation. “They are already the pre-eminent food donors, with more than 4,500 stores having signed agreements with aid groups.”

The logistics of the law must also not put an unfair burden on charities, with the unsold food given to them in a way that is ready to use, a parliamentary report has stipulated. It must not be up to charities to have to sift through the waste to set aside squashed fruit or food that had gone off. Supermarkets have said that charities must now also be properly equipped with fridges and trucks to be able to handle the food donations.

The French law goes further than the UK, where the government has a voluntary agreement with the grocery and retail sector to cut both food and packaging waste in the supply chain, but does not believe in mandatory targets.

A report earlier this year showed that in the UK, households threw away 7m tonnes of food in 2012, enough to fill London’s Wembley stadium nine times over. Avoidable household food waste in the UK is associated with 17m tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.