KaBOOM! is a national nonprofit organization that envisions a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. Celebrating 10 years of service in 2006, KaBOOM! has used its innovative community-build model to bring together business and community interests to construct nearly 1,000 new playgrounds and skateparks and renovate 1,300 others nationwide. In addition, KaBOOM! offers trainings, challenge grants, and publications for communities to use to plan a new play space on their own.

KaBOOM! attracted the attention of then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1998. Praising the organization for attempting "to do what we know is so important and that is to provide spaces and playgrounds in neighborhoods around the U.S., particularly very tough difficult neighborhoods where they haven't had a playground for many years because of violence and gangs, drugs and … other challenges," Clinton designated KaBOOM! as one of the organizations to receive a portion of the profits from her book It Takes A Village. At her request, the next year KaBOOM! representatives went to Rwanda to help build a playground in the city of Kigali. What could be a better gesture of reconciliation and hope than a playground? KaBOOM! believes play knows no borders.

A click on KaBOOM!'s Web site at http://kaboom.org provides information on the organization, examples of playground projects around the country, and details of the many corporate partners and other community support the program has engendered.

Google.org is the philanthropic arm of the popular Web search engine Google. Google.org includes the work of the Google Foundation, some of Google's own projects using Google talent, technology, and other resources, as well as partnerships and contributions to for-profit and nonprofit entities.

Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have said, "We hope that someday this institution will eclipse Google itself in overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world's problems." While the organization continues to define the goals, priorities, and approach for Google.org, it will continue to focus on several areas, including global poverty, energy, and the environment.

The Google Foundation has made some initial commitments, which include the following.

• Acumen Fund is a nonprofit venture fund that invests in market-based solutions to global poverty. The fund supports entrepreneurial approaches to developing affordable goods and services for the 4 billion people in the world who live on less than $4 a day.

• TechnoServe helps budding entrepreneurs turn good business ideas into thriving enterprises. With funding from the Google Foundation, TechnoServe is launching a Business Plan Competition and an Entrepreneurship Development Program in Ghana.

• PlanetRead is an organization seeking to improve literacy in India using same-language subtitling. By adding subtitles to Bollywood films and videos of popular folk songs, PlanetRead gives people who have low literacy skills regular reading practice.

In addition, the Google Foundation plans to support research in western Kenya to identify ways to prevent child death caused by poor water quality and to better understand what works in supplying water in rural areas.

An early Google project was the creation of the Google Grants program, which gives free advertising to selected nonprofits. To date, Google Grants has donated $33 million in advertising to more than 850 nonprofit organizations in 10 countries. Current Google Grants participants include the Grameen Foundation USA, Doctors Without Borders, Room to Read, and the Make-a-Wish Foundation. For information about the Google Grants program, visit http://www.google.com/grants.

Building positive relationships between a community's young people and its law enforcement is not always easy, but when police officers sponsor and participate in recreational and athletic programs with the children in their area, both groups benefit. Many cities in the United States have a long tradition of Police Athletic (or Activities) Leagues, or PALs. A New York Times article from April 1938 recounts the following:

... The Police Athletic League, which spells "PAL" to 75,000 boys and girls of this city, made public yesterday its annual report on the relations between the "cop" on the corner and the small "kids" who play on the sidewalks of New York. They get along very well, according to the report. The league, which has among its aims to cut juvenile delinquency and build citizenship, increased its membership by 40,000 last year. So eager were the children for membership and alliance with the Police Department that they even paid annual dues of 10 cents. …The league, which operates in all five boroughs, has an adult associate membership of 13,000. It has 69 indoor centers at strategic points. It covers a wide field in outdoor recreation and is aided by the education and recreation department of the Works Progress Administration.

Today, many U.S. cities continue this tradition. In Oregon, the Police Activities League of Greater Portland provides educational, recreational, and athletic programs for the youth of the Portland/Gresham metropolitan area, with an emphasis on disadvantaged youth. PAL strives to connect law enforcement and youth in a positive way. The organization utilizes athletics as well as recreational and educational activities to instill positive life principles and character-building tools in an effort to deter juvenile crime and violence. PAL focuses on youth who live in high-risk areas, are low income, or are classified as "at risk." More than 85 percent of the youth that PAL of Greater Portland served last year are low-income.

Pictures and stories about Portland's Police Activities League programs and their participants can be found at a http://www.palkids.org/

Many people are familiar with Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) and its work providing housing across the United States and around the world. Habitat was very visible in 2005 and 2006, helping address the housing needs created by the Asian tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake, and the series of devastating hurricanes in the United States.

People may not be as familiar with the origins of the organization. According to Habitat's Web site, at a Christian farming community near Americus, Georgia, in 1965, Millard and Linda Fuller and others developed the concept of "partnership housing"—in which those in need of adequate shelter would work side by side with volunteers to build simple, decent houses. The houses would be built and sold in accordance with the biblical teaching "no profit, no interest." Instead, volunteers, donations, house payments, and the contributed labor of the new homeowners would provide the new homes. In 1968, the group constructed 42 houses in Georgia. In 1973, the Fullers moved to Mbandaka, in the present Democratic Republic of Congo, with the goals of trying the model in a developing country and building shelter for 2,000 people. Three years later, the effort successfully launched, the Fullers returned to the United States.

In September 1976, supporters gathered together for a meeting; the result was Habitat for Humanity International. The program continued to develop, but the period of phenomenal growth began when former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, conducted their first building project in 1984, drawing worldwide attention to Habitat's work.

Today, Habitat describes itself as a nonprofit, ecumenical, Christian organization dedicated to eliminating substandard housing and homelessness worldwide and to making adequate, affordable shelter a matter of conscience and action. Under Habitat's open-door policy, all who desire to be a part of the work are welcome, regardless of religious preference or background, and the organization is committed to serving those in need, regardless of race or religion. Pictured here, actor Alec Baldwin is at work constructing a home in Covington, Louisiana, in November 2005. This simple, but effective formula has attracted supporters from many quarters, from corporations and service organizations, from individuals, from schools, and from countless celebrities. In 2001, Habitat held its first World Leaders Build. At that time, President Carter joined then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung working with Korean families. In all, 28 heads of state or governments from 26 countries participated in World Leaders Build, resulting in more than 1,000 homes in 43 countries. Leaders—local, regional, and sometimes national—from around the world, members of parliament, governors, mayors, presidents, and others, including President George W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton, continue to help build or support projects through their participation and attention. The Habitat Web site at http://www.habitat.org provides photos, videos, and numerous examples of Habitat's accomplishments.

In February 2006, 32 young Jews from across the United States went to New Orleans, Louisiana, to meet with residents and government officials about the reconstruction effort and to help in city clean-up projects in the aftermath of 2005's Hurricane's Katrina. Representatives of ACCESS: The American Jewish Committee's New Generation Program helped provide relief, which also included a visit to the flood-damaged Xavier University, a historically black, Catholic college. During the visit, they presented a donation for $100,000 to Xavier's rebuilding efforts and met with affected students and staff.

At other sites around the city, ACCESS participants pitched in with locals to help in the reconstruction effort. Projects included cleaning and painting the gym at Torah Academy, a Jewish day school in Metairie, Louisiana; organizing the library at Gates of Prayer, a reform synagogue in Metairie; and gutting several homes in the devastated Ninth Ward region with relief organization Common Ground Collective. The visitors returned home to share the needs they observed with their communities and state legislators. The prior December, AJC Executive Director David A. Harris delivered checks totaling $575,000 from the organization's Katrina fund to Dillard University, St. Clement of Rome Catholic Church, and two synagogues, Congregation Gates of Prayer and Congregation Beth Israel.

Speaking at a fund-raising concert at New York City's Lincoln Center prior to the visit, the chair of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York's Office of Black Ministry, Carla Harris, said, "The fact that the American Jewish Committee would support a black Catholic college is a symbol of how people of different faith and race can come together in the wake of a disaster like Katrina."

The American Jewish Committee, celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, has a proud tradition of responding to humanitarian crises. Over the years, AJC has contributed millions of dollars in relief and reconstruction projects benefiting people of diverse racial, religious, and ethnic backgrounds in the United States and around the world. AJC can be found at http://www.ajc.org. The ACCESS Web site is http://www.ajc.org/access.

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The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.

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