The D-MAN Foundation, Danny’s Miracle Angel Network, is dedicated to enriching the lives of families and individuals living with physical and mental disabilities. Through education, specialty programs, and fundraising efforts, The D-MAN Foundation strives to ensure that people with quadriplegia and other severe disabilities have the opportunities to achieve the highest quality of life possible.
FoodCorps is a nationwide team of AmeriCorps leaders that connects kids to real food and helps them grow up healthy. We do that by placing motivated leaders in limited-resource communities for a year of public service. Serving under the direction of local partner organizations, our service members focus on three areas of service:
Hands-on learning: students grow, cook, and taste new foods, which builds their skills and changes food preferences
Healthy school meals: the cafeteria experience steers students towards the healthiest options and gets them excited to try new healthy foods
Schoolwide culture of health: as a whole, the school community and environment – from hallways to classrooms to cafeteria to grounds – celebrates healthy food. We measure our success in terms of changes in children, schools, and systems.
In Michigan, we currently serve in the following communities: Battle Creek, Boyne Falls, Detroit, Ferndale, Flint, Muskegon, Pellston, Suttons Bay, and Traverse City. Do you want to serve your community, get kids excited about healthy food, learn new skills, and join a network of changemakers? Reach out to the Michigan Field Office for more information about our program and joining our team: miprograms@foodcorps.org
Since our inception in 2009, My Compassion has been breaking ground in the medical cannabis space. As Michigan’s 1st approved 501(c)(3) non-profit organization for cannabis education, My Compassion continues to make tremendous advancements in communicating ways for the responsible use of cannabis and public safety, through its Community and Clinical Outreach programs.
My Compassion provides community outreach, education, and research on the medical benefits of cannabis. It seeks to learn, educate, connect and energize the millions of people living with medical conditions, that are not being helped with their current medicine. My Compassion believes everyone should have access to the most reliable information when deciding on using cannabinoid treatment.
My Compassion has developed a variety of Outreach programs where it provides reliable information about medical cannabis to the public, patients and families, government agencies and healthcare providers. My Compassion’s Team of professionals have more than 100 years of combined experience in every field of cannabis. They work diligently to open lines of communication with other professional associations and organizations that will foster cooperative activities and a positive outcome for patients, families and their communities as they begin to navigate and understand the medical cannabis system.
Company’s Description
Wish Upon a Teen is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to providing resources, time and opportunities to teenagers with severe life-limiting medical conditions. Through creative, social, and educational opportunities, our goal is to normalize their environment and rebuild their self-esteem as they transition to adulthood.
Wish Upon a Teen’s founder, Michelle Soto, has an extensive background as a Child Life Specialist caring for children and teenagers. Through this experience, she learned that the particular needs of teens are often overlooked within the medical community. The combination of normal teenage stressors along with the impact of a severe life-limiting medical condition or injury can make the transition to adulthood extremely challenging. Wish Upon a Teen provides ongoing support, age-appropriate programs and a variety of fun events to teenagers throughout the United States.
Company’s Description
Planet Aid is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that collects and recycles used clothing and shoes to protect the environment and support sustainable development in impoverished communities around the world. The projects we support improve health, increase income, aid vulnerable children, train teachers, and help strengthen communities and reduce poverty. Planet Aid’s work is supported by a wide range of businesses and governments, and we are registered with the U.S. Agency for International Development as a private voluntary organization (PVO).
We started Planet Aid back in 1997 in the Boston area. The idea was to do something good for the planet and the poor. With only a few drop-off boxes and a rented storage unit, we started collecting clothes and shoes. It wasn’t long before our small rented space began to overflow. Though we were growing fast, the aim remained the same: expand global environmental sustainability and mobilize resources to end poverty.
Organization’s Social Mission
The McKinney Foundation is a Detroit based 501(c)(3) public charity. Our mission is to strengthen metro Detroit by providing quality educational programs that promote Healthy living, Entrepreneurship and Environmental Responsibility. Our target audience are individuals that stand to benefit most, school-age youth and families that are ‘low-to-moderate’ income.
The McKinney Foundation’s efforts work to ensure equity in education, awareness and access to beneficial information, resources and programs to improve outcomes for families and youth.
The McKinney Foundation is a trusted leader and a driving force to bring about community revitalization, economic empowerment, environmental responsibility and self-sufficiency by reinvesting in the citizenry of metro Detroit.
The McKinney Foundation works collaboratively with existing nonprofit organizations, the business sector, academia, schools and government agencies to ensure a healthy and thriving metropolitan Detroit.
The Leslie Science and Nature Center is a nonprofit organization that provides environmental education and experiences for children, families, and other individuals to honor and perpetuate the legacy of Dr. and Mrs. Eugene Leslie by fostering understanding, appreciation, stewardship and respect for the natural world.
Using a holistic approach to address community issues, our staff and volunteers work to meet the needs of both individuals and families regardless of race, religion, ethnic background, country of origin or sexual orientation. The LAHC programs focus on a wide range of services including:
Social Services: Emergency aid (food, clothing and shelter), career services, translation and advocacy.
Youth and Education: Academic enrichment, leadership development, diversity training, scholarship & internship opportunities, and college preparation.
Public Health: Healthy Living Program, Substance Abuse Prevention Program- HIV Awareness, Blood Drives and Hope for the Cure (Breast cancer awareness).
Our programs are designed to educate, empower, and encourage youth ages 5-19 on the importance of physical, emotional, and sexual health. The goal is not only to offer a safe space for youth to find and exercise their own silence-breaking voice but to also encourage them to become agents of awareness in the community.
outLOUD
Created to develop peer allies in schools (grades 6-12), communities, and institutions of higher learning. outLOUD participants are involved in group discussions that include but are not limited to goal planning, bullying, coping strategies, teen dating violence, body image/body awareness and physical and mental health. Students enjoy films, guest speakers, hands-on projects, service projects with local shelters and other organizations, and plan ally events for their school student body. All participants at every level will serve as peer educators conducting workshops and presentations for awareness.
Note: Younger participants only engage in age appropriate discussions.
HealthyPLAY SafeTOUCH
Designed to develop and reinforce effective coping skills while introducing appropriate touch and body awareness in children ages 5 to 11. Participants will enjoy hands-on activities/scenarios, speakers, directed art projects, small workshops, and learn how to become peer educators. HealthyPLAY SafeTOUCH encourages positive behavior, body image, cooperative play, autonomy, and boundaries. Younger participants can also engage in smaller alternative service projects.
Narrative
Young people ages 12-19 can process their traumatic experiences through art therapy projects, writing workshops, facilitated group discussions, hands-on activities, personal art displays, performance pieces, and awareness campaigns. This program is a resource that encourages restoring the feeling of pride, exploring healthy emotion, creativity in expressing one’s story and provides dedicated advocates as support.
JARC is a Michigan-based non-profit organization dedicated to enriching the lives of men, women and children with disabilities.
Erasing Barriers, Enriching Lives and Sustaining the Environment
JARC is a trailblazer in creating sustainable practices for non-profits
JARC is a 40 year-old (Farmington Hills, Mich.) non-profit organization that serves people with developmental disabilities and their families in a variety of ways, from housing to in-home respite care, to advocacy in and around Detroit, Mich. JARC is a national leader in serving people with developmental disabilities and continues to find ways to distinguish itself as leaders in the green movement, among non-profits, by creating programs and projects that help sustain the environment.
For example, this past November, six women, ages 30 to 70, moved into a barrier-free green home (in Farmington Hills, Mich.), designed by JARC from the ground up, with 40 years experience in what people with disabilities need in day-to-day living. The home, known as “The Nusbaum Home,” was designed to be equally functional and aesthetically pleasing for anyone who lives there. We believe this home is one of the first barrier-free green homes in the United States.
Our design goals were: To create a functional, efficient and fully accessible group home; to employ as many green construction principles as possible within budget constraints; and, provide the ability to incorporate the future addition of solar and wind technologies.
Features of the home include: geothermal heating/cooling; water-conserving landscaping; bamboo flooring and window treatments; and, recycled drywall and joint tape. Among other green features, the home incorporates green products whenever possible, and if not possible, we used locally produced materials to limit the use of gasoline and pollution due to their transport. The design also provides a southern exposure for elevation to lend itself to future solar paneling and features indigenous flora and fauna from Michigan. Designed and built by The Frankel Organization, it also features donated furniture and home products from local companies. This home serves as a model for how people living with disabilities can live green and productive lives, while reducing their carbon footprint.
In addition, most of JARC’s other homes are 20 to 40 years of age and need considerable maintenance and updates. JARC has made a conscious choice to make all future renovations as sustainable as possible – lessening our environmental footprint on our neighborhoods, our communities and our world. While sustainable renovations may be more expensive initially, they will lessen our energy, fuel and water consumption and waste, saving JARC dollars in the long run by decreasing, in some cases dramatically, our utility bills.
JARC also has embarked on an exciting new venture with a local Michigan-company to be one of the first to install solar-cell roof shingles, as JARC homes require re-roofing. A formal announcement of this project will be forthcoming as details are being worked out.
JARC is committed to doing business as a fiscally, environmentally, and socially responsible organization, not just in our group homes, but in our administrative offices as well. An active “Green Committee” made up of members of all departments of JARC, reviews current practices and institutes energy and resource-saving measures. These include:
Finally, each spring, JARC involves the community and invites people to plant flowers at each JARC home.
By implementing green initiatives JARC helps to erase barriers and enrich the lives of those it touches. Through community engagement and environmental sustainability JARC does its part to help its staff, volunteers and the people it serves live enriching lives, while making enormous contributions to the community in which they live, work and play.
As Earth Day marks its 40th Anniversary, so too does JARC. Just as Earth Day evolves, JARC has become one of the leading non-profits in not just being green, but living green and thinking green. It is for these reasons that JARC is a green leader and a trailblazer for people living with developmental disabilities.
Case Study: Michigan Group Home Combines Accessibility and Sustainability
