Social Change

Holland America Line launched three new commuter “ships” Monday, Jan. 9, that will run on the Sound Transit Light Rail System in Seattle. The trains, which are wrapped to resemble Holland America Line’s newest ship, ms Koningsdam, will cruise the tracks through April 2017, when the summer cruise season to Alaska begins from the Port of Seattle.

Benevity Inc., the global leader in online workplace giving, matching, volunteering and community investment software, announced that it surpassed $1 billion in donations to almost 105,000 charities in 2016. In just the last two years, donations to nonprofits through Benevity have increased fivefold.

Rebuilding Together will join with its affiliate, Rebuilding Together Acadiana, and its AmeriCorps members to repair flood-damaged homes for MLK Day.

The organization Humanitas has named the screenwriters of two films and one television series from 21st Century Fox as finalists for its 42nd Annual Humanitas Prize, a prestigious award honoring projects that contain effective social messaging and inspire compassion, hope and understanding. Among this year’s nominees are Nate Parker for Fox Searchlight’s The Birth of a Nation, Theodore Melfi & Allison Schroeder for Fox 2000’s Hidden Figures and Dan Fogelman for the pilot episode of This Is Us, produced by 20th Century Fox Television.

That’s why Keep Charleston Beautiful (KCB) and its volunteers, armed with a Keep America Beautiful/Lowe’s Community Partners Grant, began working with The Compost Rangers in connecting schools, restaurants and local businesses to a grassroots compost initiative in Charleston.

When it comes to the social sector, we are seeing clear, positive trends. Last year, charitable donations hit a record for a second year in a row at an estimated $373.25 billion, corporate giving reached $18.45 billion, and employee participation in their companies’ community efforts continues to rise. How will this story continue to unfold? Read the MicroEdge + Blackbaud 2017 CSR predictions!

In a joint pro bono effort, Weatherford, Texas Appleseed and Baker & McKenzie partnered to create The Texas Homeless Youth Handbook, a guide to help homeless youth better understand their legal rights, responsibilities and resources. Texas will be the fourth state in the U.S. to have this particular resource, found at www.homelessyouth.org.

Two dozen employees from Arrow Electronics’ enterprise computing solutions business assembled more than 200 sack lunches last month for area homeless people who were turned away from a local housing shelter due to overcrowding.

Employee giving and engagement programs are changing -- not dying.

The 100-acre Captain Forster Hammock Preserve in Vero Beach, Florida, is one of only a few corridors that connect estuary habitat along the Indian River Lagoon to the ocean, continuing through all of the natural phases of estuary, dune and coastal habitat.