On October 29-30, Scott had the awesome opportunity to speak at the 6th Annual Conference on International Giving.  On a panel with Kat Woerner and Sharon Schneider, he was able to address the idea that philanthropy is more than money.  Much MUCH more.

Your philanthropic toolbox needs to include more than a check book.  Money is the first thing that often jumps into one’s mind when one commits to doing charity and philanthropic work.  But have you considered other things, such as your social network?  Do you have friends with special skills who can donate time and talent to charity?   What about your own personal skills?  Are you an educator?  Teach people how to make a difference.

There are so many ways to donate beyond cold, hard cash, and you can visit http://thephilanthropicfamily.com/ for a more in depth look on just how to do that.

Also present at the conference, was Paul Rusesabagina, of the Hotel Rwanda foundation.  Scott spent 2 days with this amazing man, the hero who helped save the lives of 1,268 people during the Rwandan genocide.  His foundation works to raise awareness and understanding about the preconditions of genocide.  His foundation also seeks to educate on the need for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the Great Lakes Region of Africa.  Genocide directly affects several of the MGD’s, and his Foundation is crucial to our cause.

Scott also was able to meet with Cheryl Musch, the Director of International Development at SERRV.  SERRV is an amazing non-profit fair trade and development organization that works with developing countries.  With the holidays approaching, now is a perfect time to do a little philanthropic gift giving.  Visit www.serrv.org and browse through all of the amazing, hand crafted items.  Make a purchase, knowing that your money is helping someone in a developing country to raise his or her standard of living.  No sweatshop garbage from exploited people on this site.  Completely guilt free gifting.

Scott also had the opportunity to meet with Judd Holzman from Link Community Development.  LCD works tirelessly to promote high quality education for children in Sub-Saharan Africa.  By promoting MGD #2 (achieving universal primary education) LCD’s work is also directly affecting completion of other MGD’s, as education is a crucial foundation.

To find out more about LCD, visit www.lcdinternational.org.

Here at Interface we are working tirelessly to expand our own philanthropic toolbox, by interacting with other charities.  All of the aforementioned charities are integral players in completing the MGD’s, and we are proud to be working with them.  Now, see what YOU can do.

This week, on October 29-30, Scott will be attending the 6th Annual Conference on International Giving, located in Chicago.  As much as aid is needed here at home in our own United States, the need for help abroad is so much the greater.

Since Interface has been involved with charities all over the globe, Scott has a great first hand perspective on the importance of international giving, and the way to go about it effectively.

Visit the Chicago Global Donor’s Network to find out more about ways you can help internationally.  http://www.chicagoglobaldonors.org/index.php

For the first time in history, global hunger has reached more than a billion people.  About 1 in 6 people on this planet are starving to death.  With rampant financial crisis occurring around the globe, food aid is at a 20 year low.  That makes YOUR contributions and OUR contributions more important than ever before.

On October 5-6, Scott was able to attend the Summit on Global Hunger.  This year the summit took place right in the heart of our nation’s Capital. Nestled next to the Supreme Court and the  Library of Congressl was the Stewart Mott House–ground zero for this year’s Hunger Summit.

For 2 days, Scott was surrounded by the leading experts on global hunger, such as Karen Sendelback, president and CEO of Friends of the World Food Program, and Frederick Tipson from the United Nations Development Program.  These people are on the forefront of the battle, and they know their stuff.

The main point that Scott took from the Summit, was the importance of taking action at home.  We can ALL do something.  The problem isn’t so big that all of you average, yet extraordinary people out there can’t make a difference.  Here are some ways that you can personally fight hunger:

Volunteer–No matter where you are, there are always charities in need of physical bodies to do the work.  Your contribution does not always have to be monetary–use your muscles!

With 1 billion hungry people in the world, every day should be World Food Day.  This Friday is the REAL World Food Day, which exists to raise awareness that although the task is daunting, you CAN make a difference.

The key to winning this battle–and it certainly can be won–is to tell your friends, family, associates, enemies, strangers, in-laws, co-workers, and EVERYBODY that hunger is not impossible to conquer.  That individuals absolutely CAN make a difference.  When a child can be fed for 25 pennies a day, anybody can make a significant contribution.

If you happen to be in the Phoenix area, Stop Hunger Now, Food for the Hungry, and Phoenix Rescue Mission are bringing Operation Sharehouse to Phoenix.  We invite you to join with them and hundreds of volunteers who will be packaging 100,000 meals for hungry children in developing countries and collecting food for local families in need.

With 16,000 children dying every day due to hunger related causes, 100,000 meals will make a difference.

If you aren’t in the Phoenix area, you can visit http://www.wfp.org/stories/10-things-you-can-do-world-food-day for ideas of things you can do on World Food Day.

How about spending an hour at freerice.com?  Invite your significant other to watch you define obscure words like ambuscade and legerdemain.  He or she will be wholly impressed with your genius intellect, and your vocabulary will grow while you feed the hungry.  I spent about 20 minutes today and donated 900 grains of rice, and now I’m feeling pre-tty darn replete with refulgence.  Don’t be a curmudgeon should your vocab prove indigent–soon enough you’ll be able to bloviate with even the most supercilious of folks.

Don’t let this World Food Day sneak by unnoticed.  Let’s make a difference and raise awareness–even if the you just mostly become aware that your vocabulary wasn’t quite as vast as you once thought.

If in Phoenix:

WHAT:    Operation Sharehouse Phoenix Launch Event

We are living in a world rife with disaster and conflict.  Every single day there is something; major flooding in the Philippines, a tsunami in American Samoa, constant and ever present fighting throughout Africa, Afghanistan, and a plethora of other areas throughout the world.

But you know this.

We are living in a country that has been at war, yet every single day we are dwelling in relative peace and safety.  Where having “nothing to eat” in the house probably means one can not find anything but Ramen, bread, and peanut butter.  When natural disasters occur on our own soil, we have the means to help each other out.

You know this.

For a large part of the world, war and natural disaster exacerbate the already dismal hunger problem.

Conflict feeds hunger.

The World Food Program is the largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger.  Since 1962, the WFP has been working tirelessly to to feed the more than 1 billion people suffering from hunger world wide.

Friends of the WFP is a U.S.-based, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that focuses on building support in the United States for the World Food Program.

On October 5-6, Friends of the WFP will be hosting the second annual Summit on Global Hunger in Washington, DC.  I will be attending the  summit to participate in two days of in-depth workshops and presentations on global hunger, meetings with members of Congress to discuss hunger policy, panel discussions with leaders from the private sector to discuss best practices in corporate social responsibility, and strategic planning sessions to further develop and expand the WFP program.

This will be a phenomenal opportunity to work firsthand with the WFP, and see how we can plug Interface into the equation.

World hunger is not unconquerable.  Working with high impact charities like the WFP and Friends of the WFP, we can bring an end to hunger.

We know this.

A Larry King exclusive by Djimon Hounsou, the only professional actor involved in the Summit on Climate Change.

I have always been vocal on poverty issues and have championed humanitarian causes, but I never really considered myself an environmentalist. Sure I try to consume less and recycle more, but it wasn’t until I began to witness the truly cataclysmic effects of climate change on the poorest amongst us that I felt obligated to speak up.

For years, I’ve been advocating for the struggling farmers in my home country of Benin and in Mali in West Africa, where agriculture is more than a job. It is a way of life. Their very survival depends upon what they can grow, and unlike the economic crisis that we’re facing now where many people live paycheck to paycheck, these struggling farmers fight and scrape by on a meager existence from season to season. All across Africa, southern Asia, and other third world countries, farming is the only means of employment and survival, which is greatly affected by the climate changes taking place — droughts, flooding, and erratic seasons. Through my work with the international humanitarian group Oxfam, I have learned that a changing climate has the potential to dramatically impact them.

In 2005, when I visited a remote village outside of Bamako in Mali, I saw how dependent people’s lives were on rainfall. If the rain had not come in time, a whole season of planting would be wasted. Luckily, some rain did fall but not enough for most farmers to even turn a profit.

Because climate change will make seasons much less predictable, storms more frequent and conditions more difficult to manage, the poorest farmers around the world, such as the cotton farmers in Benin, are likely to suffer the most, despite their lack of negative impact to the crisis.

Lacking the information or resources necessary to understand, prepare for, and respond to the dire affects of climate change, many of the world’s poorest communities will experience unprecedented stress.

Without adequate support to adapt to the changing climate, the effect is a downward spiral into deeper poverty and increased vulnerability.

This could mean that millions would go without food, pull their children out of school, sell off cattle to pay for mounting debt, or migrate to other regions. Such dramatic consequences are not just a terrible tragedy; they can also threaten to undermine global stability and security.

I know all of this first hand. Growing up in Benin in West Africa, and having worked and traveled to many parts of the world, I know how important farming is to the livelihood of so many people.

And it’s not just the people in West Africa who feel the impact of climate change; it’s happening all over the world. Cities and villages that line the coasts are under threat from ever intensifying hurricanes, floods, and storms. Here in the States we have witnessed our eastern seaboard and gulf coast ravaged by hurricanes, while my home state of California continues to fight wildfires that grow out of control. The large river basins of the Niger River, the Senegal River, and Lake Chad have experienced a total water decrease between 40 and 60 percent.

The number of people affected by climate change will only increase; Oxfam estimates that it will affect 275 million people by 2015. That’s more than the entire population of the United States.

With this type of projected impact, it is no surprise that this global crisis, and its drastic effects on poor people around the world, will at last take center stage and get the attention it deserves. Heads of state from around the world are planning to come together in Copenhagen in December to work towards an agreement to tackle climate change. If global leaders want these negotiations to be a success, the agreement has to allow for both reducing global warming pollution and for investing in the resiliency of defenseless communities around the world. This assistance can help them to prepare for and respond to the impact of climate change.

Helping vulnerable communities means providing funding for those who are living in the most extreme poverty to adapt to climate change and prepare for the future. This funding can support innovations such as drought-resistant seeds or provide essentials like assembling food banks for times of shortage. Even coastal tree barriers and raised homes for floods and hurricanes can help. The bottom line is that the world’s wealthiest nations can and should help the neediest to plan ahead for the future, to avoid the humanitarian disasters that we have seen ravage these communities.

As an African, I have a responsibility to share the impact of climate change on Africa with the global community; but as citizen of the world I have a responsibility to speak out and do my part for all of humanity. The clock is ticking – now. World leaders have the chance to stop the clock. Let’s hope that in New York and in Copenhagen they take the lead to lift millions of people out of poverty. We don’t have the luxury to debate the issues, or question ourselves. We must stop second-guessing our duties. It is unequivocally our inherent responsibility to one another as humans to assist and find solutions for the poorest in our communities and around the globe.

Filed under: Global Warming • LKL Web Exclusive • Larry King Live

With social media being all the rage you can now follow our work at www.twitter.com/scottlazerson & www.twitter.com/interfaceorg.  From dinner with 14 of the First Ladies of Africa to talking global philanthropy with Paris Hilton at her house to trekking up mountains in Guatemala to deliver meals & toothbrushes into school lunch feeding programs you can now know exactly what we are doing by adding us on your Twitter!

Actor Simon Rex teaching children in Guatemala how to brush their teeth

In Guatemala, the face of poverty and hunger is young, indigenous and rural. Guatemala, with the fourth highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world and the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean, faces a serious challenge to reduce chronic undernutrition, currently at 49.3% among children under 5.

The Interface Foundation took two of our supporters Ami Manning & actor Simon Rex to visit the village of  Tzununá during the week of May 3.  Thanks to Stop Hunger Now we delivered 800 meals into mother/child care programs. 

The women of the village even helped us carry the meals to the center where we distributed them.

The Women of Tzununá Carrying Meals to Distribute

There are more slaves on the planet now than at any time in history—an estimated 27 million. In South Asia alone, nearly 10 million people languish in debt bondage. As many as 2 million people have been trafficked into prostitution or forced labor. Mass atrocities, meanwhile, have claimed some 20 million lives in more than 25 countries in the past half century. The ongoing crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan has left hundreds of thousands of dead and has displaced more than 2.5 million people. Across Africa, Asia, and the Americas, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and similar violence threatens millions more.  Please visit, www.humanityunited.org to learn more…

Children In Northern Uganda

Last night the world watched Hollywood as they honored their finest and I had the chance to join Leeza Gibbon’s 2009 Oscar Night “party with a purpose”.  This was a first-of-its-kind event that brought together stars from film, TV, music, sports and fashion to celebrate the worlds of celebrity and charity.

There was a live telecast direct from the iconic Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills with celebrity contributors serving as “Ambassadors of Change” — they included Larry King, Jessica Beil, Tony Hawk, Slash & Perla Hudson to name a few.  These stars lead by example and use their “celebrity” for the greater good.

 The Interface Foundation joined Leeza Gibbons & her Leeza Gibbon’s Memory foundation to take the global stage of Oscar Night & used it to put the focus on advocacy, philanthropy and volunteerism with the first ever A Night to Make a Difference.

Thanks to Brooke Burns, Cheryl Burke, Chevy Chase, Academy Award® Nominee Danny Boyle, David Foster, Academy Award® Winner Forest Whitaker,  Hilary Duff, Jessica Beil, Mel B, Paris Hilton, Olivia Newton John, Slash & Perla Hudson, J Ambrozic, Teri Hatcher, Thelma Huston, Tony Hawk for using your voice for the good of humanity!!!