Sean Maher is the co-chair for Sleep Out: Executive Edition for Covenant House Texas. He is also a Partner RCH Energy and is the demonstration of how citizens can help their community. The Covenant House Sleep Out Executive Edition is an international movement of individuals sleep outside in the same conditions as the homeless so participants can raise funds and awareness for homeless youths. Sean tells us how his first experience was eye-opening, even if he knew he would be going home after the event. He got a strong impression of the despair the youths experience.
Covenant House is a network of shelters that provides safety and support to homeless young people in more than 30 cities across the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Sleep Out: Executive Edition is on November 18th. Go to ww.covenanthousetx.org for more info.

Maisha Colter is the CEO for Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse (AVDA). She brings a message of hope during the immense surge in crime that has come with the pandemic and the lock downs (domestic abuse is up %40 in the Houston area) but help is available. No one deserves to be abused and we can know the signs – especially isolation. Through education we are able to help each other. However, it will come down to the victim to decide to actually leave the violent relationship and a survivor is at the greatest risk of death at the time of leaving or right after leaving. We discuss how AVDA can help them make a plan to leave as safely as possible and remain safe.
Call 713-224-9911 for immediate help or visit www.avda.org.

Sargent David Miller of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office tells us about the 5th Annual Sharing is Caring Food Drive on October 30th. He founded this food drive which has been a great success. It benefits Mission Northeast which offers job training, adult GED and ESL classes onsite, Thanksgiving and Christmas distributions, monthly home delivery of food and other assistance for senior and disabled persons and much more.
Go to www.missionne.org for info on their programs and check out www.mctxsheriff.org for the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office website which has information on how the event is unfolding.

Every day, hundreds of inmates are released from prison in Houston. They often have no place to go, only the clothes on their backs, and $100 to their names. The pandemic made this re-entry into free life even more challenging, which is when services like CrossWalk Center step in to help. They help returning citizens rebuild their lives by giving them the tools to break the cycle of recidivism. They get help finding a home and job and how to keep them. It's also a supporting community where they can make some good friends, away from their past lives and crimes. Go to: www.crosswalkcenter.org to help their mission.

Tama Lundquist and Tena Lundquist Faust are co-presidents of Houston Petset. They advocate for Animals and their right to live free from cruelty. It's a big problem in Houston where stray dogs are the number one cause for people to call the police. There are so many neighborhoods in our city where people can't get to the bus station, kids can't play in the street, all because stray dogs make it too dangerous. We are not being responsible about keeping the population of strays under control and all it takes is responsible pet owners to spay and neuter their pets.
Strays are often living is squalid conditions. They are famished and in pain because they are also victims of cruelty. And while our shelters are so full that the city of Houston pays $500 to euthanize a healthy, adoptable animal taken into a shelter, up in the North East, shelters are empty. That's why Houston Petset has a program to bus healthy, spay / neutered animals to forever homes in states like Wyoming. The cost of screening, spaying and neutering these animals and then driving a bus load of them to good homes across the country: $100 per animal. That's $400 less than killing it here in Houston.
If it keeps happening, it's because the issue is not well known nor discussed openly. Let's change that. Go to: www.houstonpetset.org

There are over 1 billion people who need eye care and OneSight is building vision centers around the world to help them. They have built permanent, sustainable clinics which train and employ locals in countries like The Gambia, Rwanda, South Africa, China, Vietnam and many more . The result is that the solution becomes locals helping their own neighbors. OneSight also sends technicians and doctors all over the world with all the tech they need to help and they call these "pop-up missions" Charitable Clinics. They're online at www.OneSight.org.
I also talk about the new tech at the Gulf Coast Regional Center which makes the old hemoglobin test obsolete. Gone is the needle prick on the finger!
Additionally, hear about Houston Arboretum's ArBOOretum event for kids and grownups. They're going to have pony rides, a train and a climbing wall on top of their annual Halloween market. Got to www.HoustonArboretum.org
Finally, I explain how you can enjoy audiobooks at no additional cost by borrowing them from the Houston library. And you really should! www.HoustonLibrary.org

The Gary Sinise Foundation, founded by the famous actor, helps our veterans and first responders with a variety of great programs that will give you hope! As America remembers its heroes of 9/11, I tell you how one of them was Betty Ong. Before she died, Betty Ong showed uncommon courage. She helped authorities identify the terrorists who murdered her and the rest of the passengers on her plane. She is a representation of the very best of the USA. I also pay homage to the great Jean-Paul Belmondo, the legendary French actor known internationally for kick-starting the French New Wave in "Breathless". You'll hear how he was the original Tom Cruise, a daredevil stuntman-actor-comedian.

Tom Hardwick is a consulting curator of Egyptology for the Houston Museum of Natural Science where they're world-premiering "Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs" opening on November 20, along with a newly renovated Hall of Ancient Egypt. Tom spends a lot of his time in Cairo and we talk about what it's like arranging big installations like this one. This is a major new event from the HMNS since after premiering in Houston, the exhibit will tour the world. Go to www.HMNS.org for info and tickets.

The Galveston Bay Foundation started an oyster shell recycling program to repair and preserve Galveston Island's oyster shell reef. They've harnessed the help of seafood restaurants to pick up their used oyster shell and clean them up (in the sun). Then, once they are clean, oyster shells are returned to the bay to replenish the reef. www.galvbay.org
Training service dogs and the amazing things they can do for their owners:
www.servicedogs.org
The Women's Fund is holding a fundraiser. Lara Bell, co-chair of 11th Annual Rockin’ Resiliency Luncheon, tells us about the event planned for October 24. Get tickets here: www.thewomensfund.org

Jeffrey Campbell is the chief program officer for AIDS Foundation Houston. They just launched START Now, their rapid start anti-retroviral treatment project. It's designed to link people diagnosed with HIV to the right care and treatment medication within 7 days of diagnosis. It's an ambitious program they launched in the middle of the pandemic and their goal is none other than ending the HIV epidemic in greater Houston. With our help, they'll achieve this goal. www.aidshelp.org