Six weeks ago on Sunday, the parents of now five year old Ella Newmiller of Raleigh, North Carolina received a major shock. Ella had not been feeling well, was glassy eyed and sleepy so her parents took her to an urgent care center. The following day at UNC hospitals, they faced the unfathomable news that their precious daughter has an inoperable brain tumor.

Ella’s family has a simple request of people who would like to help: please take a few minutes every day to pray for Ella, for the oncologists and physicians directing her care, for her parents, Renae and Mark, and for her brother Jack who is in second grade.

Once Ella’s rounds of chemo are complete, the Newmiller family will take Ella to a facility that combines traditional and holistic medicine for five weeks. The cost of the health care at the center, which is not covered by the Newmillers’ insurance, is more than $70,000.

A fundraiser is being held on Thursday, June 12 at Marbles Kids Museum from 6:30pm-9:00pm to support Ella’s Miracle Fund and Children’s Brain Tumor Research. Tickets are $50 per family. Enjoy a silent auction along with the exhibits and interactive play at Marbles open after-hours exclusively for this fundraiser. Refreshments and light fare are included in the ticket price.

If you are unable to attend the event, please consider making a donatation to Ella’s Miracle Fund at www.ellasmiracle.com

To visit Ella’s CarePages website for the latest news, click here and register.

Does your preschooler love to dress-up? See what our favorite Go-To Mom, Kimberley Blaine, has to share about children and dramatic play.

Plus, where to pick up great dress up gear, the latest news on Operation Shower and a Clever Parents milestone.

Watch Vidcast Episode #36 on Clever Parents TV.

Meet Jordana Holovach, mother of Jacob and founder of Jacob’s Cure, an organization dedicated to finding a cure for Canavan Disease, a devastating genetic brain disorder. Learn about the disease and find out how you can help. Plus, is your baby a conservation baby?

Watch Vidcast #34 on Clever Parents TV.

• Visit Clever Parents to learn about Jacob’s Cure: Promoting Research & Raising Awareness for Canavan Disease
• Visit the Jacob’s Cure website at www.jacobscure.org
• Buy a Smiley Bag to benefit Jacob’s Cure to help fund research for Canavan’s Disease from Baby Dish
• Visit Clever Parents for the latest column by Ellen McNeil: The Ecospot: 10 Ways to Raise an Eco-Conscious Child
• Visit the My Conservation Baby website at www.MyConservationBaby.com

See Vidcast #34 on Clever Parents TV.

Enjoy this week’s top stories from these great blogs for parents:

• Babyfaces: Photo of the Week – Newborn Yin/Yang Twins
• Boston Mamas: Baby Daze Review – A must-have, easy to use book to help you keep track of feeding, diapering, sleeping, etc.
• Celebrity Baby Blog: Jennifer Garner, a celebrity mom just like you
  We love how NORMAL Jennifer Garner is. Check out Jennifer and Violet at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market.
• Celebrity Baby Blog Reviews: The Phil & Ted E3 – A single stroller that accomodates two!
• Celebrity Moms: Gwen Stefani to Use Concerts to Help Kids
  Gwen Stefani announces plan to auction off VIP Concert Experience to raise funds for childrens charities
• Coochicoos – It’s a Great Time to be a Stuffed Animal – Cool new ways to stash your stuffed animals
• Classy Mommy Reviews Wife in the Fast Lane – We reviewed an advance copy of this entertaining read. The author will even call into your book club to discuss!
• One Chic Mama: Hot Crocs for Spring – Two great new shoe styles from Crocs
• SheFindsMom Baby Wearing Week – Wear Your Baby — Stylish Baby Carriers
• The Stylish Child Finds a Shower Gift with that Wow Factor
  Babycakes of Scottsdale creating shower gifts that take the cake

Introducing St. Baldrick’s Foundation – Shaving the Way to Help Conquer Kids’ Cancer. Here’s how you can help the cause (even if you don’t want to shave your own head). Plus, Step by Step Fundraising, Relay for Life, the American Heart Association Heart Walk and a list of charitable walks in your area. Watch the vidcast on Clever Parents TV.

I recently stumbled upon a new blog that a mother has created to chronicle her son Zachary’s battle with pain. Zachary is 13 and has autism, pain disorder, mitochondrial disorder, cyclic vomiting syndrom, photopobia, phonophobia, complex regional pain syndrom type II and he’s had rabdomyalosis twice ( meaning it could happen again.) Before Zachary was treated for his pain disorder, mom Jennifer lived with her son in a closet-turned padded cell in an effort to protect him from himself. He would hit himself in the head on the wall repeatedly resulting in large contusions on his head.

You can learn more about Zachary at zacharywinsagain.blogspot.com/ where you can also donate to the MAGIK Pain Clinic at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles to help free Zachary and other children from pain.

If your New Year’s resolutions included volunteering, congratulations – the world needs more people like you.

If you’re reading this chances are you’re better off than 98% of the rest of world. Sure, you can have a better job, bigger house, and nicer car. But even having a job, house or car puts you way ahead of the pack. And I don’t just mean the less fortunate in Third World countries; right here, in every state of in the Union, there are those who don’t have the food, shelter or help they need to have better lives. Men, women, and children; old and young. They need our help.

That’s the bad news. The good news? You want to do something about that. Don’t worry, you don’t have to endow a foundation or give millions to help. There are plenty of things you can do right now that won’t require donating money. And, if you’re clever about it, and we know you are, volunteering is something that will give back to you as well.

Before choosing a charity or activity to devote your time and efforts to, do a little planning and ask yourself a couple of questions and answer them honestly. Doing so will guarantee that your genorousity doesn’t become a New Year’s fad like the Bowflex exercise machine in your basement–sorry to bring that up, but seriously, you haven’t touched that thing in years.

1. What are you passionate about?

Finding a charity that taps into your interests, will satisfy you far more than one that doesn’t involve something that gets you going. If you love reading to your children, think about volunteering for a library story hour. Like home improvement, play Extreme Makeover with Habitat for Humanity. Interested in art? I bet your local art museum has a need for docents. You get the picture.

2. What are you good at?

Crackerjack accountant, financial wizard? You can make an immediate impact at a charity that needs bookkeeping help. Likewise, if you know your way around a framing nailer, Habitat needs you.

3. What skills do you want to learn?

Volunteering is a great, often overlooked, way to pickup new skills or brush off rusty ones. Interested in learning or perfecting your foreign language skills? Look for a charity that works with non-English speakers.

4. Double or triple dip.

Don’t settle for just one goal (volunteering), when you can knock off several. Join a Team in Training like program and reach your fitness goals while raising money for a good cause. Resolved to get outside more? Help build trails for the Sierra Club or a local hiking society. Better yet, think up a double dipping opportunity, then plan a way to tackle it as a family so you can hit your “Spend more time with the family” goals as well.

5. Go Huge.

You’re clever, don’t settle for the run of the mill. Go Huge. Tackle the all time combo: Start your own non-profit. Pick a cause your crazy about, set goals for helping, then devise a way to raise money, awareness, and recruit help to achieve those goals. When you succeed it’ll beat every other New Year’s Resolution you’ve ever had.

• How long has itz been? Remembering the details of basic eating, sleeping and pooping habits of infants.
• Visit the itzbeen website.
• Teaching your children to save, spend and give. Read the Clever Parents feature on the Learning Cents bank.
• Visit the Learning Cents website.
• Squeezable Cookbook Makes Eating Veggies Fun
• Buy the California Squisine cookbook on Amazon or learn more about California Squisine at www.californiasquisine.com
• Learn about Best Buddies
• Visit the Best Buddies website.

Download the Quicktime video.
Download the Flash video.
Previous Clever Parents vidcast episodes.

We would like everyone to meet (if you haven’t met already) our friends at Project Cuddle! They are a very deserving and worthwhile charity that helps prevent baby abandonment and has helped save the lives of hundreds of babies since its inception 10 years ago.

Please check out their website at www.projectcuddle.org and show your support!

Also, through January 31, 2007, BabySwap will be donating 15% of the proceeds we receive from all our service provider listings to Project Cuddle. To sign up through BabySwap, please visit our website at www.babyswap.net.

Thanks for swapping!

Laura and Scott

Don’t forget about the Stegosaurus tee, our original Dino Tee.

New Year’s Resolutions include getting fit and giving back? Check them both off your list by signing up to be a part of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training the world’s largest endurance sports training program. Choose to run or walk a whole or half marathon, do a triathlon, or a 100 mile bike ride and the Team in Training crew will provide you with certified coaches, training, teammates, and transportation and lodging at one of more than 60 events in the U.S. and overseas.

In exchange for getting you in shape and towards your fitness goals, you help raise money to fight Leukemia and Lymphoma. While the survival rates against Leukemia have steadily climbed since the seventies due to heroic research by the medical community, Leukemia is still the Number 1 killer of children in America. If there is a disease that every parent wants eradicated, Leukemia is it.

So this is a perfect deal, right? You get in shape, Leukemia gets punched one step closer to extinction. Can’t beat that.

Interested in joining, check Team In Training out online.

Other things to tackle than getting fit? Already in great shape? Donate anyway.

Heart disease is the most common birth defect around the world. One in every 120 children is born with a heart-defect and one-third of these children will not survive to their first birthday. Those that do survive are often so incapacitated that they are barely able to do more than eat and lay listlessly; condemned to lead unfulfilling lives.Fortunately most defects can be successfully treated as they are in the U.S.; unfortunately, the healthcare that is readily available here is not available in the developing world. Enter Children’s Heartlink, a non-profit founded in 1969 to help treat and prevent heart disease in needy children worldwide whose program last year touched more than 300,000 lives.Based in Minnesota and partnered with leading institutions such as the Mayo Clinic and Stanford University, Children’s Heartlink has helped hundreds of thousands of kids since its founding. Heartlink started out bringing sick kids to the U.S. for surgery and treatment; it has since evolved to partnering with institutions in Central America, China, India, Malaysia, Kenya, Ecuador, and the Ukraine to perform surgeries overseas and help and train clinics and local hospitals to treat pediatric cardiac issues. Taking the fight to the source as it were has allowed Children’s Heartlink to touch the lives of tens of thousands of more children than it has in the past.We could go on about how valuable Heartlink’s work is, but our words couldn’t be more eloquent than, James Irangu Githiga, a father from Kenya who writes:

‘Much greetings from Nairobi, Kenya. I’m the dad of baby Trevor, and it is now exactly three weeks since his undergoing a successful open heart surgery at The Nairobi Hospital. I’m very happy to let you know we’ve noticed a significant change in him in terms of appetite and activity, and he is also very cheerful nowadays. We don’t have enough words to thank you, but please accept these words as a token of our appreciation – thank you very, very much and may God bless you abundantly in whatever you do.’
Read more stories about Heartlink’s “Medical Miracles”: http://www.childrensheartlink.org/give/give_now.asp.

Help them continue fighting the good fight: donate online at http://www.childrensheartlink.org/give/give_now.asp.

To learn more about Children’s Heartlink: http://www.childrensheartlink.org.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America – www.bbbsa.org

Boy Scouts of America – www.scouting.org

Boys & Girls Clubs of America – www.bgca.org
Stated Purpose: “to inspire and enable all young people, especially those from disadvantaged circumstances, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens.”

CureSearch – www.curesearch.org
CureSearch unites the world’s largest childhood cancer research organization, the Children’s Oncology Group, and the National Childhood Cancer Foundation through our shared mission to cure childhood cancer. Research is the key to cure.

Childhelp USA – www.childhelpusa.org
Stated Purpose: “to meet the physical, emotional, educational and spiritual needs of abused and neglected children…by focusing…efforts and resources in the areas of treatment, prevention and research.”

Childhood Leukemia Foundation – www.clf4kids.com
Childreach / Plan USA – www.planusa.org
Stated Purpose: “to make lasting improvements in the lives of the neediest children.”

Children International – ww.children.org
Stated Purpose: “to provide the opportunity for impoverished children to grow into healthy, educated and self-reliant adults.”

Children’s Cancer Research Fund, Inc.- www.childrenscancer.org

Children’s Defense Fund – www.childrensdefense.org
Stated Purpose: “to leave no child behind and to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.”

Children’s Health Fund – www.childrenshealthfund.org

Children’s HeartLink – www.childrensheartlink.org
Based in Minnesota and partnered with leading institutions such as the Mayo Clinic and Stanford University, Children’s Heartlink has helped hundreds of thousands of kids since its founding. Stated Mission: We’re on a mission to improve the prevention and treatment of children’s heart disease in developing countries.
Children’s Wish Foundation International – www.childrenswish.org
Stated Purpose: “to provide terminally ill children of every origin, race, creed, religion or economic status the experience of a lifetime in the form of his or her favorite wish.”

Children, Incorporated – www.children-inc.org
Stated Purpose: “to assist children of all races and creeds, administering to their physical, mental and spiritual needs.”

Christian Children’s Fund – www.christianchildrensfund.org
Stated Purpose: “Christian Children’s Fund creates an environment of hope and respect for needy children of all cultures and beliefs in which they have opportunities to achieve their full potential, and provides practical tools for positive change – to children, families and communities.”

Compassion International – www.compassion.com
Stated Purpose: “to advocate for children, to release them from their spiritual, economic, social, and physical poverty and enable them to become responsible and fulfilled Christian adults.”

Covenant House – www.covenanthouse.org
Stated Purpose: “to serve suffering children of the street and to protect and safeguard all children.”

Cystic Fibrosis Foundation – www.cff.org
Stated Purpose: The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is a donor-supported, nonprofit organization whose mission is to find therapies–and eventually a cure–for cystic fibrosis (CF), and to improving the quality of life for those with the disease.

Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption – www.davethomasfoundation.org
Stated Purpose: “to increase the number of adoptions of waiting children in North America.”

Easter Seals – www.easterseals.com
Stated Purpose: “to create solutions that change lives of children and adults with disabilities or other special needs and their families.”

Feed the Children – www.feedthechildren.
Stated Purpose: “to deliver food, clothing, medical supplies and equipment, education materials and other necessities to people lacking such essentials.”

Girl Scouts of the United States of America – www.girlscouts.
Stated Purpose: “to inspire girls with the highest ideals of character, conduct, patriotism, and service that they may become happy and resourceful citizens.”

Girls Incorporated – www.girlsinc.
Stated Purpose: “to inspire all girls to be strong, smart and bold.”

Give Kids the World – www.gktw.
Stated Purpose: “to provide children, with life-threatening illnesses, between the ages of 3 and 18 and their families, the cost-free opportunity to visit and experience various Central Florida attractions.”

Habitat for Humanity – www.habitat.org
Search the site to get involved based on various Habitat for Humanity projects around the world.

Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundatoin International – www.jdrf.
Stated Purpose: “to find a cure for diabetes and its complications through the support of research.”

Make-A-Wish Foundation of America – www.wish.org
Stated Purpose: “is to grant the wish of each child under the age of 18 who has a life-threatening medical condition, i.e., a progressive, degenerative or malignant medical condition that has placed the child’s life in jeopardy.”

March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation – www.modimes.org
Stated Purpose: “to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects and infant mortality.”

Miracle Flights for Kids – www.miracleflights.org
Stated Purpose: “to improve access to health care by providing free air transportation to hospitals across America; to promote awareness of our services through targeted outreach programs; to enlist the help of community-minded people through strategic calls to action; to promote the spirit of volunteerism

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children – www.missingkids.com
Stated Purpose: to operate “a national resource and technical center to deal with the issues of missing and exploited children.”

National Center for Family Literacy – www.famlit.org
Stated Purpose: “to create educational and economic opportunity for the most at-risk children and parents.”

National Childhood Cancer Foundation – www.nccf.org
Stated Purpose: “to raise funds and awareness to conquer childhood cancer.”

National Children’s Cancer Society – www.nationalchildrenscancersociety.org
Stated Purpose: “to improve the quality of life for children with cancer and to reduce the risk of cancer by promoting children’s health through financial and in-kind assistance, advocacy, support services, education and prevention programs.”

Newborns in Need – www.newbornsinneed.org

Operation Smile – www.operationsmile.org

Parents Television Council – www.parentstv.org
Stated Purpose: “to improve the content of entertainment programming, with emphasis on prime-time television and children.”

Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation of the U.S., Inc. – www.pbtfus.org

Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation – www.pcrf-kids.com

Prevent Child Abuse America – www.preventchildabuse.org

Reach Our Children – www.reachourchildren.org

Ronald McDonald House – www.rmhc.org
Stated Purpose: “to create, find and support programs that directly improve the health and well being of children.”

Save the Children Federation – www.savethechildren.org
Stated Purpose: “to create lasting, positive change in the lives of children in need.”

Shriners Hospitals for Children – www.shrinershq.org
Stated Purpose: “to save children’s lives and restore their bodies to the highest level of usefulness; to conduct research into orthopaedic and burn care; and to train physicians and medical professionals in the treatments of orthopaedic disabilities and burn injuries.”

SIDS Alliance/First Candle – www.firstcandle.org
Stated Purpose: “to promote infant health and survival during the prenatal period through age two with programs of research, education and advocacy; while at the same time providing compassionate bereavement support to those experiencing an infant death.”

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – www.stjude.org
Stated Purpose: “to find cures for children with catastrophic illnesses through research and treatment.”

St. Jude’s Ranch for Children – www.stjudesranch.org
Stated Purpose: “to provide healing – one child at a time.”

StandUp for Kids – www.standupforkids.org
Stated Purpose: “to help homeless and street kids.”

Starlight Children’s Foundation – www.starlight.org
United Way – www.unitedway.org – Search volunteer opportunities throughout the world.

Youth Development Fund – www.youthdevelopmentfund.org
Stated Purpose: “supports educational programs concerning drug abuse, health and fitness; presents festival events for children and the general public.”

Know of a national organization that’s not listed on Clever Parents and should be? Tell us about it here.

Last January at the World Economic Forum, Nicholas Negroponte from MIT’s Media Labs, announced an initiative that is audacious both in scope and the technical challenge it aims to achieve. The One Laptop Per Child foundation, an offshoot of MIT’s Media Lab, wants to design, build and distribute a $100 laptop to 150 million children around the world.

The idea is to distribute these laptops to poor children particularly in the developing world to help with their education. Having a laptop will improve education levels and help link children in remote, impoverished areas with the world around them. Under the plan local governments, aid agencies, and private donors would pick up the tab. Current corporate sponsors include AMD, Google, and NewsCorp.

In November, Negroponte and his team are planning to unveil a prototype laptop featuring a 500MHz processor with a “skinny version” of Linux, 4 USB ports, 1GB of memory and Wi-Fi support. The laptop will be powered via a conventional AC adapter or a wind-up crank for use in areas without a reliable source of electricity.

This is without a doubt an outstanding initiative that, if successful, will bear fruit over several decades or more. Form more information, check out: http://laptop.media.mit.edu.