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Laura Hackney

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Looking back, a year in review

As we begin to wrap up the year and look back at what we accomplished in 2017, I am always amazed by the incredible nonprofit founders we met this year. Their hardships, determination and passion to turn their journey into an organization that gives to others…. simply an endless source of inspiration.

So before we look ahead, lets take a moment to recall some of these extraordinary people we talked to in 2017:

Katie Quintas with Here to Serve showed us that in the face of adversity of having a husband and a son with cancer, she would create an organization to serve families whose children have cancer. Katie combines technology , her ability to connect and compassion to help families with items from food, to groceries to medical expenses.

Francie Paul with Saving Tiny Hearts, took her experience having a newborn with congenital heart disease to create an organization that funds research to save these tiny babies born with congenital heart disease. One of the loveliest humans with the biggest hearts I have ever spoken too.

Rebecca Pontius of the Do Good Bus. Rebecca and her friends decided that doing good together is fun and makes the world better, so she created a nonprofit that brings groups of people together to volunteer and do good. A fun way to serve, connect and make a difference.

Andy Goodman of the The Goodman Center shared how to use the power of storytelling as a tool to impact the world.

Two amazing women, Yasmine Johnson and Jules Leyser of Alliance of Moms created an organization to break the intergenerational cycle of teen mothers in foster care and inspired me with their incredible organization. These two women are beautiful inside and out and ones to watch for sure!

Ford and Heidi Johnson, Jennifer Hull, daughter Josie and Sienna Dancsecs

Jennifer Hull and daughter Josie, founders of Once Upon a Room, transform hospital rooms for the sickest children, think Extreme Home makeovers on hospital rooms. Their story is beyond inspirational and one for all to see.

Hand to Hold‘s Kelli Kelly inspired us all with her story of being the mother of a premature baby and the struggles that ensued. The result is her incredible organization that supports families through this challenging time. A beautiful story of love and compassion.

Hope and Comfort‘s Jeff Feingold’s amazing story of taking his child’s birthday party and turning it into a nonprofit that provides soap, toiletries along with  Hope and Comfort to thousands of children in the Boston area.

Annie Cannons The incredible story of Laura Hackney and Jessica Hubley’s remarkable adventure to end human trafficking in the United States. A nonprofit that not only teaches women how to write computer code but gives them skills, an education, hope and the ability to break the cycle and create change for others. Two of the most inspiring women and the most brilliant organization that is approaching a horrific topic in a fresh and empowering way.

JoAnn Thrailkill of Pablove showed us that even when your loss is overwhelming, there is love and hope. JoAnn shared the tragic story of losing her son, Pablo and creating a lasting legacy of hope for children with cancer. JoAnn’s  words haunt me, “The experience of starting Pablove has allowed me to always see the light. I am now reminded daily of the love that surrounded me during one of the most difficult times in my life.”

It is people like JoAnn and all the other incredible people we met this year that will inspire me moving forward into 2018. The sources of inspiration are endless, the people awe-inspiring and there are so many others we met this year that I hated not including. My dream for the New Year is to share as many of these heroes as possible with the world. It is obvious to me that we simply need more heroes.  They are all right here, every week, sharing their challenges, journey, humanity and hope for us all. Thank you for subscribing via email to a little soul and inspiration this year, for liking our Facebook page, commenting or sharing a post. It takes a village to spread the word of light, hope, goodness and charity.

Wishing each of you blessings in the New Year filled with love, gratitude and kindness to all.

Charity Matters.

 

Sharing is caring, if you are so moved or inspired, we would love you to share this to inspire another.

Copyright © 2017 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

AnnieCannons

Have you ever heard of Annie Cannon? She was a pioneer, who worked at the Harvard Observatory in the early 20th century. Annie Cannon and a group of women discovered the very categories that stars fall into. If ever there was a more perfect name for an organization about two stars who are truly pioneers, it is Laura Hackney and Jessica Hubley’s nonprofit organization Annie Cannons.

 

Truly one of the most innovate organizations tackling one of the most horrific problems, human trafficking or slavery. The International Labour Organization estimates that there are 20.9 million victims of human trafficking globally. Sixty-eight percent are trapped in forced labor, twenty-six percent are children and over fifty percent are women and girls. According to the nonprofit organization Polaris there were over 8,000 reported cases in the United States in 2016. I truly had no idea and was shocked by these statistics.

What was even more stunning was two Stanford graduates (one a Masters from Stanford and the other Stanford Law) who were determined to find a solution to empower these victims by teaching them skills, earning income and building solutions to empower them to break the cycle. Last week I had one of the most incredible conversations, I have ever had…. with Co-Founder Jessica Hubley.

Charity Matters: What is the back story to Annie Cannons, your nonprofit is pretty unique?

Jessica Hubley: Laura was the manager of the Program on Human Rights on Stanford and had worked as a Senior Research Associate for Stanford’s Anti-Trafficking Project. I was an attorney, we had both gone to Stanford and in September 2013, I was writing a nonfiction book about human trafficking. Laura was going to Myanmar for work and asked if I wanted to come along. We met and interviewed nine people who were victims of human trafficking and they all said the same thing. That they were desperate for work, they were poor, vulnerable and trusted someone.

 

This was shocking to me, but not to Laura who had been in this space for much longer. I asked Laura, “What if we got these people a job?” The answer wasn’t as simple, but we knew that if we could find a way to address the financial piece we might be able to impact change.

When we came home, I was a successful attorney working with digital media companies in the technology industry. I was seeing so many people in software development making $400 an hour writing code and couldn’t help but wonder what if we taught these women victims of human trafficking how to do this?

Charity Matters: What did you do then? 

Jessica Hubley: First we spent an enormous amount of time talking to people who ran nonprofits, shelters here in the Bay Area that housed women who were victims of human trafficking, we spoke to Fortune 500 companies and gathered a lot of information.

 We are self-proclaimed huge geeks. That being said, we taught ourselves to write code. Laura taught herself, then she taught me, we began essentially putting a school together for these women and kept refining our curriculum. We knew the market and need for coders and believed that these women who had escaped unimaginable past had what it took. They were good problem solvers, they were survivors, hard workers and they had grit. It turns out that it is exactly what it takes to be a perfect coder.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work? You are running a nonprofit and a school, essentially and then you are helping these women get jobs writing code? It is an enormous undertaking, how do you do it?

Jessica Hubley: I think there are three things. One, I still feel I have something to prove to the world. Two, we built the kind of workplace that we both always dreamed of that is supportive and collaborative, where we all learn from one another. Lastly, Laura understands and having a partner to lift me up ….and we keep each other going.

Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?

Jessica Hubley: When I see one of our students thriving and being successful. When I receive a card or note saying you changed my life and my children’s’ lives. When our customers love their apps and websites and when we have found hidden figures in the world that no one is looking at and have given them the economic power to break the cycle of human trafficking. We have helped people build solutions.

Charity Matters: What have you learned from this experience?

Jessica Hubley: I have learned that most people are good but more than that, I have learned that what really matters is the mark we leave on the world.

Charity Matters.

 

Sharing is caring, if you are so moved or inspired, we would love you to pass the torch/post and inspire another.

Copyright © 2017 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.