"My little children, let us love, neither in word nor with the
tongue, but in deed and truth." -- 1 John 3:18.
We are blessed to have on this earth extraordinary individuals
whose capacity to give love transcends the prevailing culture of
consumption. Here are four of my favorite non-profit charities that put the
words from the book of John into action:
The Garden of Angels
Debi Faris
P.O. Box 1776
Yucaipa, CA 92399
www.gardenofangels.org
Faris, a housewife and mother of three, founded a burial site
for discarded babies after watching a television news report on a newborn
boy discovered in a duffel bag along a Southern California freeway in 1996.
She tracked down the baby at the Los Angeles County coroner's office and
rescued him and two other dead infants from being dumped in a mass grave.
Faris and her husband have purchased a total of 95 burial lots
at the Desert Lawn Cemetery in Calimesa over the past six years. To date,
they've buried 55 babies. Faris takes the unclaimed bodies of unwanted
children, swaddles them in blankets, lays them in pastel caskets, gives them
names, and holds memorial services at the cemetery, dubbed the "Garden of
Angels." A local business provides free white doves for every baby's funeral
ceremony.
Faris' ultimate goal is to reach out to parents and stop more
senseless murders of innocents from taking place. Until the killing ends,
she will mourn and memorialize the abandoned babies of strangers as if they
were her own.
The Children's Scholarship Fund
Development Office
8 W. 38th Street, 9th Floor
New York, NY 10018
www.scholarshipfund.org
New York financier Theodore J. Forstmann and entrepreneur John
Walton didn't wait for the government to come around on school vouchers for
poor children. Instead, they launched the Children's Scholarship Fund in
1998 with donations of $50 million each.
The fund has assisted promising kids like Moses Holland, a
student at St. Martin of Tours in the Bronx, whose mother had been homeless
and destitute. "I thank God for you," Ruth Holland wrote. "I used to live in
a shelter and during this time we got the scholarship. It gave us hope for a
better future."
While teachers unions and politicians continue their turf
battles to preserve the public education monopoly, the Children's
Scholarship Fund has helped nearly 34,000 needy children like Moses get the
quality education they deserve. Scholarsh