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www.choresforcharity.com
Ilana Rothbein started Chores-For-Charity when she was a high school student to create awareness about epilepsy and raise money for epilepsy research. Her older brother Paul was struggling with seizures and when Paul’s medical condition seemed hopeless, his parents sought the help of Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a world renowned neurologist and Director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at NYU Medical Center. Finally, with the help of Dr. Devinsky, Paul was able to get his epilepsy under control and has been seizure free for five years.

As a tribute to Dr. Devinsky and her brother Paul, Ilana wanted to donate money for epilepsy research at NYU Medical Center through their non-profit organization, Finding a Cure for Epilepsy and Seizures (FACES). She set aside 45 hours of her babysitting earnings and donated almost $500 to FACES. Ilana then developed the Chores-For-Charity website and program to open a new avenue of private donations by encouraging high school students to become philanthropic by donating a small amount of their part-time earnings as an alternative way to earn community service credit.

www.uniteforsight.org

Jennifer Staple founded Unite for Sight in 2000 as a sophomore at Yale University. Unite For Sight empowers communities worldwide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. Local and visiting volunteers work with partner eye clinics to provide eye care in communities without previous access, with the goal of creating eye disease-free communities. Additionally, vision screening and education programs are implemented worldwide by volunteers working in ninety chapters established at universities in North America, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In Africa and Asia, Unite For Sight volunteers work with partner eye clinics to implement screening and free surgery programs. What started with a single volunteer has now grown to a force of over 4,000 volunteers working through 90 chapters, based at universities, medical schools, corporations, and high schools worldwide, and delivering eye care screening and education programs to over 400,000. Unite For Sight has sponsored 11,712 sight-restoring cataract surgeries to date and anticipates reaching 12,000 by the end of 2007. Working with our partner ophthalmologists, we have also provided thousands of people with treatment for infections, glaucoma, pterygium, and refractive error.