The Karma for Cara crew had a happily very busy summer! We welcomed back Abby and our new summer intern Nisha to the K4C family. This summer, Nisha focused on researching and implementing a K4C Excellence in Nursing Award. The second nurses award will be presented at the “PRS Guitars One Night, One Show, One Cause” event in Baltimore on October 13 featuring Santana. When we receive more information on how to order tickets, we will post it on Facebook/website!
Abby’s summer project was researching and creating our Microgrant Program which encourages kids 18 and under to apply for funds between $250 and $1,000 to complete service projects in their communities. The application is now live on our website: https://karmaforcara.org/get-involved/! If you are interested, fill out the application and email the completed form to info@karma.sitenotlaunched.com.
Another one of our summer goals was to have a completed website, and we are happy to present our revamped and beautiful website! Please share the link with all of your friends :)
A good portion of our summer was spent on researching and developing programs to implement in the future. We met with two groups of students at Northwestern University who spent the last quarter of their school year utilizing the strategy of design thinking to promote youth volunteerism. One student group designed a phone application called Service for Others (S40), which connects high school students and engages them in service opportunities. The other student team created a Karma for Cara “club-in-a-box,” a physical box containing materials necessary to start a community service club. Both groups had innovative ideas that we look forward to utilizing as we continue to grow, develop, and plan the implementation of K4C clubs in local schools and programs to increase youth volunteerism.
We are now happy to offer Karma for Cara Service “club-in-a-box” available to high school students. Currently we have three schools participating in the K4C Club and would love to extend our reach to more schools and students. Each box contains informational handouts on how to start the club and ideas for monthly service projects, as well as promotional materials such as a drawstring bag, USB, T-shirts and stickers for the students. If you or anyone you know is interested in starting a club please email us at info@karma.sitenotlaunched.com. Let’s make a difference!
In other news, our friend Oliver has been diligently preparing for a short documentary on people who volunteer and give back when they themselves were in need. The documentary will include a story on Cara, students at Living Classrooms and the creation of the Karma for Cara Foundation. Filming will begin the week of October 20!
We successfully had our first Karma for Cara Weekend of Service, which garnered participation from K4C supporters from Nashville to Texas to Chicago! Thank you to all who gave back that weekend, and we look forward to another Weekend of Service in the coming months.
Our Karma for Cara Team spent the summer volunteering around Chicago and have a few events coming up if anyone would like to join us! Our upcoming event will be volunteering with the Boys and Girls Club in October. Please visit our events page for more details.
Finally, we are happy to announce that our Children’s story “Cara Cookie Volunteers” is officially on its way to the printer! We are proud of the finished product and cannot wait to share the story with everyone! We will be selling the book on Amazon and distributing the book free of charge to local schools and libraries.
We could not do all of this work without the support from all of you! Please visit our website to keep in touch :)