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Haiti Distribution Trip
Last month, Vitamin Angels took part in a distribution trip with our partners at Hope for Haiti. We hope you received our Notes from the Field (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3) and twitter updates from founder Howard Schiffer describing the wonderful experiences he had with our in-country hosts! We also posted blogs from trip attendees Amy Streets, our Vitamin Angels Program Coordinator and Sharon Dressen from our partners Rainbow Light.
Together with Hope for Haiti and our other great partners on the ground in Haiti, we are reaching thousands of mothers and children in Haiti through their exceptional distribution network and dedicated teams with vitamin A, prenatal vitamins, and children’s multivitamins.
Thanks to Rainbow Light, for helping us reach new and expecting mothers and young children in Haiti with your generous donation of prenatal and children’s multivitamins. And a special thanks to all of the donors who make our work in Haiti and around the world possible.
Our thanks to Matt Dayka for once again lending his wonderful skills to photographing the experience! View more photos from the trip.
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Sierra Leone
 Our partners at Daystar Adopt-A-Village first visited Sierra Leone in 2002 where they began providing free medical care, vision screening and surgery at local hospitals.
Daystar has adopted Waterloo Village and over the next 5 years is committed to providing a variety of institutions and services including a healthcare facility, eye clinic, pharmacy, grade school, library and orphanage. Vitamin Angels recently granted the group nearly 50,000 prenatal vitamins to be distributed through their health care clinics. |
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Zinc Partnership
 Our partners at Novus International recently hosted Kenya’s Ambassador to the U.S. Mr. Peter Ogego. During the visit Mr. Ogego learned of our partnership with Novus on a new zinc initiative. The new zinc program will provide relief for diarrhea, one of the most widespread and deadly health problems affecting children under the age of five around the world. The program will be launched in Sauri, Dertu, and Eldoret Kenya, with plans to extend to other areas of need worldwide.
Read the press release
More about the partnership |
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To see more of our projects in countries around the world, learn about our partners and how many children we are reaching, check out our projects pages:
Learn more about our projects in Operation 20/20 | Thrive to Five |
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| We would like to pay special thanks to those partners who have been especially generous in the recent months. Each and every supporter is truly valuable and makes our work possible; to see a list of all our donors, check out our Contributors page. |
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DSM and Nexgen Pharma
At Vitamin Angels we know our success is all about collaboration and this month we would like to thank our partners at DSM and Nexgen Pharma for inspiring a collaboration to create 6 million children’s multivitamins! DSM is supplying the premix and Nexgen Pharma is tableting and bottling the vitamins. Some additional partners have joined the effort to supply the other materials necessary to make this donation possible. Thanks to Alpha Packaging for donating the bottles, Mold-rite Plastics for donating the caps/liners and Overnight Labels for supplying the labels! All of the multivitamins will be sent to our partners in Honduras where they will help thousands of children in need of essential nutrients.
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| Looking for ways to get involved? Our new website makes it easier than ever to make a difference and be part of the solution! Check out our Get Involved section for ideas. |
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 Photograph Your Love Photo Contest on Facebook
This holiday season Vitamin Angels has teamed up with Specialty Color Services, a Santa Barbara-based printing company to participate in their second annual "Photography Your Love" contest on Facebook. Also new to the contest, Vitamin Angels’ own Howard Schiffer will be acting as a judge this year (Watch the Video)!
Submit a photo of something you love to the Specialty Color Services page on Facebook, it’s easy and anyone can participate!
Your photos will not only be on display to a huge audience, but you will be eligible to win some amazing prizes and be helping Vitamin Angels all at the same time! We hope you will take a look at the beautiful entries that have already been posted, and be sure to add your own! The contest runs through Jan 2010. Become a fan of SCS now and you will be eligible for fun giveaways including free prints! Get all the details!
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Aidan’s 9th Birthday Bash
Birthdays are always a cause for celebration and one of our supporters made his 9th birthday particularly special. Instead of receiving gifts this year Aidan asked that his friends donate to Vitamin Angels. At his birthday party he informed his friends about Vitamin Angels and the importance of our work. On his special day he helped raise enough funds to reach an additional 800 children with vital nutrients! Now that’s a reason to celebrate!
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 Pure Prescriptions Facebook Fans
Pure Prescriptions is a different kind of vitamin and supplement company that specializes in natural products. Recently Pure Prescriptions created a special Facebook page just to talk about their partnership with Vitamin Angels, and now for every user that becomes a of Pure Prescriptions they will donate 25 cents to Vitamin Angels!
Become a fan today! |
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 Baristas Unite
The Espresso bar staff at Ukiah Natural Food Co-Op is all about giving back and this month they chose Vitamin Angels as the recipient of their hard earned tip money! Together they have helped us reach 2,000 children. Thanks Baristas! |
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 Vitamin Angels in Glamour Magazine!
Vitamin Angels has made our Glamour Magazine debut! Alright all you Glamour readers, head to the newstand and check out page 216 of this month’s magazine. You will find a Giving Calendar for the month of December and Vitamin Angels made Day 5 with our simple message and cost affective solution! |
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Watch for Vitamin Angels!
 Check out our friend Andrew Bravener’s latest video on Youtube! All the money generated by the video from Google Adsense is coming to Vitamin Angels! That means for every view, comment, or rating posted the more money that will be generated for us! So take a few minutes and enjoy Andrew’s new, hilarious video and help Vitamin Angels in the process! Watch the Video. |
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| Have a great story to share? We would love to hear from you! Send Brittany an email and let us know what you are doing to support Vitamin Angels! |
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Dear Friends,
Thanksgiving is upon us so this seems like an appropriate time to talk about hunger. Having just returned from Haiti where so many children came up to me clutching their stomach's saying "I'm Hungry," I've seen up close what it looks like when children are eating 1-2 bowls of rice per day (or corn, or lentils and chapattis, take your pick - the food staple changes but they’re all critically deficient in basic essential nutrients). The resulting vitamin deficiency diseases and the corresponding vulnerability of these children under 5 years old to something as simple as an infection, a common childhood illness, or even diarrhea is the reason that Vitamin Angels exists. We are committed to getting these children basic essential nutrients they need to have a chance at a healthy live.
I don’t usually put too much credence into numbers, I’m much more interested in the individual child, still the numbers tell a profound story:
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Right now there are over 6.8 billion people on this planet.* |
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Over 1 billion of these people are undernourished.* |
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Chronic malnutrition is the single largest killer of children under 5 years old. |
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Over $105 million in food will be tossed in the garbage today in the US.* |
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$100 million will be spent on weight loss programs and products in the US today.* |
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$5 million will be spent on global food aid in the world today.* |
Besides the children we reach, the only number I’m really concerned about is the number 1 – you! I know how much of a difference one person can make. I have seen individuals, just regular people, join Vitamin Angels by the thousands with one objective in mind - to make a difference in these children’s lives. For this commitment and this support, we are forever thankful!
Upwards!
 Howard Schiffer, President
*www.stopthehunger.com |
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Stunted Growth a Key Indicator of Undernutrition
BBC News released an article this week, "Poor Nutrition 'Stunting Growth,'" bringing attention to the negative effects of poor nutrition on the growth and development of children in the developing world.
spite varying progress that has been made since the creation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a third of the deaths of children under five in the developing world are linked to poor diet. Only 63 out of 117 countries are on track to meet the MDG of halving the rates of underweight children between 1990 and 2015. While South America is making significant improvements, Asia is struggling and Africa is doing particularly poor.
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New Maternal, Child and Newborn Health Initiative
Maternal and child health-interested individuals and groups have lately expressed a great amount of concern over the lack of progress made towards the Millennium Development Goals, which are set to be reached by 2015. Failure to take action and meet the goals will result in the preventable deaths of 4 million children and 780,000 adults each year. This includes the half a million women who die annually in pregnancy or childbirth.
In response, this past September, the Partnership for Maternal, Child, and Newborn Health (PMNCH) announced a new initiative meant to accelerate progress towards the achievement of Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5, which focus on reducing child mortality and improving maternal health respectively. The PMNCH is an international alliance of over 280 governments, donors, NGOs, health care professionals, and academics.
Read More |
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Santa Barbara International Marathon
On Sunday December 6th Santa Barbara will hold its first ever International Marathon and Vitamin Angels is one of the official charities. Vitamin Angels staff members have been training hard for the big day. If you are interested in participating there’s still time to sign up! Can’t run 26 miles? That’s alright, neither can we, which is why we are running the marathon relay style! Get a team together (2-4 people) and come enjoy Santa Barbara’s beautiful scenery and temperate fall weather! We’ll see you on the course!
Register Today (and make sure to choose Vitamin Angels as your charity of choice.)
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There's Still Time to Save
The Unconventional Angels Coupon Promotion has been met with a lot of enthusiasm by consumers eager to save money on their favorite natural products and help support the important work of Vitamin Angels.
While many of the participating stores have run out of coupon books, many were able to order additional books in order to continue the promotion. If you’ve already used some of coupons, there’s still time to try out the rest. Hang onto your booklets and keep an eye on the expiration dates for each coupon. Thanks for being an Unconventional Angel!
For a complete list of retailers, click here |
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