Tag Archive for 'epic change'

Show Your Love on Mother’s Day for Your Mom & Mama Lucy

Published in campaigns and community. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Last year, using the theme of gratitude and TweetsGiving, Epic Change catalyzed the global community to help build a school in Tanzania. The work they have done with Mama Lucy has been incredible and the school is now serving over 400 children.

For Mother’s Day, Epic Change wants to help Mama Lucy realize another dream – to build a home on campus where in-need children will live. Towards that end, Epic Change has created an online collaborative art project to honor moms across the globe called To Mama With Love. The call-to-action is to create a “heartspace” for a mom you love consisting of words, photos and video.

As Stacey Monk, the founder and CEO of Epic Change, explains:

With www.ToMamaWithLove.org, we hope to build this home out of the love we share for moms across the globe.  Just imagine.
According to the LA Times, this year Americans alone will spend $14.6 billion on Mother’s Day.  Imagine if the gifts we gave made the world a better place for children & mamas everywhere.

Here’s mine:

Happy Mother’s Day, mom! (For more love to my mom, check out my Ada Lovelace Day post, too!)

What I Like:

The elements of this campaign that I like are the same ones that Epic Change always gets right:

  1. Time sensitive: Mother’s Day is this Sunday in the US and this campaign creates an easy to understand timeline for participation + real impact
  2. Real Impact: The changes and impact are always real, visible, and important, and Stacey and all those involved do a great, consistent job of sharing the stories of the kids (and Mama Lucy) benefiting.
  3. From the Heart: Just like Tweetsgiving, and everything that Mama Lucy is doing in Tanzania, the To Mama with Love campaign is all from the heart. It’s honest and simple and creates great ways for people to share love and passion for each other (opposed to all those campaigns built on fear or anger).
  4. Real People: Just like the element of real impact, this campaign and Tweetsgiving both succeed because they are created by, benefit, and involve real people, being themselves.  At the end of the day, we are humans. We don’t need to pretend we aren’t.

How You Can Share:

  • Visit http://www.tomamawithlove.org/ to see the heartspaces already popping up on the map from around the world
  • Use #tomamawithlove in Twitter
  • Create a heartspace and share your story! (You can see the one Stacey made here.)
  • Join the streaming conversation! You can connect with others via voice or video on Friday – find out more here!

Thanks so much, Mama Lucy, for all the hard work and dedication you have devoted to the kids and community.  And thank you, to my mom, for all your love!

Published on May 5, 2010 by Amy Sample Ward. 8 Comments

TweetsGiving: Show Your Gratitude With Epic Change

Published in events and fundraising. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

There’s just one week before TweetsGiving!  Next week, participants will share what they are grateful for through Twitter and other online media and attend gratitude parties around the world. People donate to a shared cause in honor of that for which they are most grateful Funds raised will go to support the work of Mama Lucy Kampton (@MamaLucy), a ChangeMaker who has transformed her community in Arusha, Tanzania through her school Shepherd’s Junior.

Learn more and show your gratitude!

Scheduled for November 24 – 26, 2009, the 48-hour event created by Epic Change will encourage participants to express their thanks using online tools and at live events. In honor of the people and things that make them grateful, guests will be invited to give to a common cause at events held across the globe.

Why TweetsGiving?

Last year, funds from TweetsGiving helped build a classroom in Tanzania.  This year, the Epic Change team are working on building a technology lab there.  Earlier this month, we interviewed Avi Kaplan from Epic Change, and asked him what they were up to in Africa:

What are you up to right now in Africa?

We just spent three weeks at Shepherd’s Junior near Arusha, Tanzania setting up a technology lab and wireless internet at the school. Together with our fabulous volunteers Melissa & AJ Leon of theLacProject, we taught the students and teachers about computers and social media. The students of Class Five at the school are now on Twitter and Tumblr and you can follow them all by clicking their pictures in this blog post. The internet has opened up the world for these students and their teachers are increasingly using the web in their curriculum.

For more details from our recent work here, including video, photos and more in-depth coverage of all about the work we’ve been up to in Tanzania on the “I <3 Epic Change” Blog created by theLacProject and in a recent article in the Huffington Post.

(Read the rest of the interview here.)

Get Involved

Published on November 16, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments

Interview: Avi Kaplan, Epic Change for TweetsGiving

Published in events and interview. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

epic change tweetsgiving logoI recently had the opportunity to connect with Avi Kaplan, the Community and Events Director at Epic Change, to discuss the upcoming TweetsGiving campaign and events.  Avi is just back from Tanzania where he and other Epic Change team members were working with the students in the classroom built with last year’s TweetsGiving proceeds.

Find out more in the interview below!

What is Epic Change?
Epic Change is a US nonprofit dedicated to helping social entrepreneurs harness the power of their stories to create change in their communities. We are a very heartful organization and a lot of what we do is thanks to an incredible group of volunteers.

What is TweetsGiving?
TweetsGiving is a global celebration of gratitude and giving on November 24-26. Participants will share what they are grateful for through Twitter and other online media and attend gratitude parties around the world. People donate to a shared cause in honor of that for which they are most grateful. Where do the funds go? Funds raised will go to support the work of Mama Lucy Kampton (@MamaLucy), a ChangeMaker who has transformed her community in Arusha, Tanzania through her school Shepherd’s Junior.

What was last year’s celebration like and how do you think it’ll be different this year?
TweetsGiving last year was overwhelming because we put the program together so quickly and really didn’t know what kind of response we would get. Once the tweets of gratitude started to flow in we new we had identified a very powerful emotional chord with people. The tone of the messages and the level of participation we saw were hopeful and inspiring. The addition of gratitude parties this year is significant. A different kind of reflection is accomplished face-to-face than you can achieve behind a computer screen. I expect the parties to be lively gatherings and for people to form new relationships and to come with open hearts ready to share.

How can people get involved?
You can find an event to attend on our website TweetsGiving.org, volunteer to host a gratitude party (it’s not too late!), and join the Epic Change Community online to receive continued updates on the project.

What are you up to right now in Africa?
We just spent three weeks at Shepherd’s Junior near Arusha, Tanzania setting up a technology lab and wireless internet at the school. Together with our fabulous volunteers Melissa & AJ Leon of theLacProject, we taught the students and teachers about computers and social media. The students of Class Five at the school are now on Twitter and Tumblr and you can follow them all by clicking their pictures in this blog post. The internet has opened up the world for these students and their teachers are increasingly using the web in their curriculum.

For more details from our recent work here, including video, photos and more in-depth coverage of all about the work we’ve been up to in Tanzania on the “I <3 Epic Change” Blog created by theLacProject and in a recent article in the Huffington Post.

I hope you’ll join us for TweetsGiving and I’m really excited for what’s next at Epic Change.

About Avi
After over a year working as a volunteer, Avi is excited to join Epic Change as the Community and Events Director. He is a South Florida native and currently lives in Washington DC. He’s interested in using technology to organize for social change and is a recent Harvard graduate. You can find him on twitter (@MeshugAvi)or by email (Avi@EpicChange.org).

Published on November 3, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 0 Comments