For more information, please link to Mr. Wood’s blog here

Help Heal Haiti Flyer

Help Heal Haiti Video by Oakridge High School Students

New York Times Article

by Loretta Robinson | The Muskegon Chronicle

North Muskegon Public Schools students collected $1,871.68 this winter for Haiti through the American Red Cross following the devastating earthquake in that country.

Fundraising events during Jan. 25 to Feb. 5 included a school hat day, organized by elementary students, and a hat day for middle and high school students organized by the Donate Pennies Organization. Participants paid $1 to wear hats in school. Donate Pennies also conducted a “Fasting For Haiti” on in which participants were encouraged to fast with fundraising options, said Sara Knuth, an English teacher at the North Muskegon schools and founder in 2007 of the Donate Pennies Organization.

Those fundraising options included participants giving money that would have been spent on food toward the cause and finding folks to sponsor the hours they fasted.

The fast offered Donate Pennies club members a chance to “better understand the feeling of hunger that refugees and displaced persons endure,” Knuth wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle.

“I’m so proud of them,” Knuth said. “I made the suggestion on a Monday (Jan. 25) about fasting for Haiti. It was soon after the earthquakes, the kids got very excited about it and ran with it, and we had almost 30 kids fasting (on Jan. 28), many other people donating and a breakfast on that Friday (Jan. 29) morning.”

Proceeds from the fundraisers will go to Haiti through the American Red Cross.

Donate Pennies is a student organization at North Muskegon middle and high schools that works throughout the school year to encourage youth to care about themselves and others and to empower students by showing them how a single person’s action can help to make a difference. For more information about the group, contact Knuth at (231) 719-4129 or e-mail her at  knuthsa@nmps.k12.mi.us.

mlive.com link (scroll down to Good Deeds, the 2nd part of the article)

Fasting for Haiti by Erin Alderink

Erin is a junior and the club’s student consultant for the organization.

The high school’s fast for Haiti was inspired by Jan Lundberg’s Culture Change blog. Read Lundberg’s post about North Muskegon’s fast at the following link:

High Schoolers Fast to Aid Haiti

Judges at the International Criminal Court ruled Wednesday that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir may be charged with genocide for his role in a five-year campaign of violence in western Sudan’s Darfur region.
… “Genocide is a much more complicated legal position to meet (than war crimes and crimes against humanity), because you have to show in proving genocide that there was a specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a group based on — in this case — ethnicity or race,” Ellis told CNN in July. “Obviously, the prosecutor believes he would be able to prove this intent and so he wants the opportunity to prove that in trial.”

The warrant for al-Bashir was the first ever issued by the ICC for a sitting head of state. It currently includes five counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape. It also includes two charges of war crimes for intentionally directing attacks against civilians and for pillaging.

… Al-Bashir is the front-runner in an election scheduled to take place in April, and a genocide charge is unlikely to harm his prospects.

CNN-Full Story

10:00 am: Meet at the Washington, DC Mall
11:00 a.m. to 12:00pm: Rally from West Capitol Hill
12:00pm: March to the White House

WHY: Urge the Obama Administration to:

• STOP ICC-indicted President Omar Al-Bashir’s bid for re-election
• STOP sentence issuance for Darfuri Opposition Leaders without guaranteeing them rights to a fair trial
• STOP unfair elections & promote free and legitimate FUTURE elections including a freed Darfur.
• CANCEL the Doha Negotiotians for Peace that lack proper Darfuri representation
• IMPLEMENT UNSC Res.1769 that calls for 26,000 UN troops to be deployed to Darfur.
• REMOVE Arab Janjaweed and their families out of Darfuri land.
• GUARANTEE PROTECTION and compensation for Darfuri villagers wanting to return to their homes.
• ALLOW expelled humanitarian organizations back in Darfur to help genocide victims
• CLARIFY the US policy towards Darfur.

StopGenocideNow.org

Fast for Haiti Pledge Sheet

Haiti Fast Certificate

Our goal is to fast for 31 hours. We will donate the money saved on food to Haiti. Money can also be raised with pledges from sponsors or, simply, by collecting donations.

Thank you for your support in this event.

Here, she recounts Germany conquering Ukraine in the second world war.

She brings calm, then conflict.

“If we take it that art’s purpose is to illuminate the world in a new way, provoke a reaction, somehow alter the consciousness of the viewer then her work is a huge success.” – James Donaghy

The Donate Pennies Club will be fasting for Haiti on Thursday, January 28^th. The fast (no eating, just drinking water) will begin at bedtime on Wednesday night and end with breakfast (breaking the fast) on Friday at 6:30am. Money saved on food will be donated for Haiti relief efforts. All North Muskegon Public Schools staff, community members, and 8^th-12^th grade students are invited to participate. Students under 18 should sign a pledge including a parent’s signature for permission in order to participate in the fast. Pledge/parent permission sheets will become available on Monday. Those unable to fast or students in grades lower than 8^th are welcome to participate in other ways to raise money for Haiti.

Ways to participate include:

• fast and donate the money not spent on food
• gather pledge sponsors for each hour that you don’t eat
• calculate the money spent on food for one day and donate it
• be a sentinel of a fasting student
• attend the boys basketball game to support the effort of fasting students in the stands
• attend the fundraising breakfast Friday morning from 6:30am – 7:00am in the North Muskegon cafeteria

In addition to raising money for Haiti, Donate Pennies Club members are fasting to better understand the feeling of hunger that refugees and displaced persons endure. All donations to Donate Pennies during the week of January 25 – 29 will be forwarded to aid Haiti.

Feb 5-6, 2010

The conference will take place at the Michigan Union on February 5th and 6th. Sudanese ex-child-soldier-turned-hip-hop-artist-and-activist Emmanuel Jal will perform the first night at the Michigan League and a concert featuring many great local artists will occur Saturday night.

Click here for the Conference Link