At the core of our company is our immeasurable compassion for children and their ongoing well-being. We have committed to give back by donating proceeds from our sales to the Children’s Home Orphanage in Umbergaon, Gujarat, India, just minutes away from our factory. Our monthly donation helps provide at least 35 children with proper nutrition, clean water, and shelter. This is a special place that we got to see with our own eyes during our visit to India when we toured each stop along our organic supply chain, from the farm to the weaving facility to the fabric print shop. We are thrilled that the orphanage was recently able to move into an upgraded facility with a kitchen and other amenities that will help make the lives of the children a little bit better.
Benefits Of Giving Back
When you choose gifts that give back to others—like Cat & Dogma organic baby clothes—you help those you reach out to and also experience a boost to your own health and happiness. When we do something nice for others, our brain chemistry actually changes. Oxytocin, a hormone that soothes us, is produced in the brain when we give. We also experience an amazing biological phenomenon called a “helper’s high” that is the result of our brain releasing chemicals called endorphins that make us feel good naturally. We actually sense the positive energy in our body that is similar to how we feel after we exercise. These positive feelings make us happier and healthier by leading to improvements in our health including:
- Less stress and anxiety
- Less sadness, loneliness, or depression
- Stronger immune system
- Fewer aches and pains
- Increased life expectancy
Giving back also encourages an attitude of gratitude. When we give to those in need, we feel a sense of gratitude because it puts things in perspective. Volunteer work is a great opportunity for us to appreciate what we have and provides some insight into the broader world and what others are going through.
Finally, when you give gifts that give back to your friends and family, you are teaching them about an important cause and inspiring them to want to pass along that positive feeling to help more people. Just think, that box of Cat & Dogma organic baby clothes that you give to your friend for her baby shower can end up inspiring a chain of kindness and compassion to help so many more individuals around the world.
Ways To Give Back
There are endless ways for you and your family to give back throughout the year. Whether you are volunteering your time at a local organization, sending donations to your favorite charities, dropping off canned goods to a local food bank, hosting fundraisers, or purchasing gifts that give back, you are making a huge difference to make the world a better place.
Check out some of our favorite charities addressing issues related to human rights, children, and the environment:
Human Rights
Amnesty International: Conducts research and generates action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and demands justice for those whose rights have been violated
Global Rights: Promotes and protects the rights of marginalized populations through capacity building in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Human Rights Watch: Advocates freedoms in connection with fundamental human rights, such as freedom of religion and the press. It opposes violations of what it considers basic human rights, which include capital punishment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
International Committee of the Red Cross: An impartial, neutral, and independent organization whose exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of war and internal violence and to provide them with assistance. It also directs and coordinates international relief and works to promote and strengthen humanitarian law and universal humanitarian principles.
Children Protection
Save the Children: Committed to giving all children the best chance for the future they deserve—a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn, and protection from harm.
Children’s Defense Fund: Works to ensure every child has a healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a safe start, and a moral start in life and a successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.
World Vision: Dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities to reach their full potential, in nearly 100 countries, by helping tackle the causes of poverty and injustice.
UNICEF: Works in 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, to defend their rights, and to help them fulfil their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.
Environment
Earthjustice: Uses the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people's health, preserve magnificent places and wildlife, advance clean energy, and combat climate change.
Environmental Defense Fund: Guided by science and economics, the organization finds practical and lasting solutions to the most serious and urgent environmental challenges to preserve the natural systems on which all life depends.
Union of Concerned Scientists: Our scientists and engineers develop and implement innovative, practical solutions to some of our planet’s most pressing problems—from combating global warming and developing sustainable ways to feed, power, and transport ourselves, to fighting misinformation, advancing racial equity, and reducing the threat of nuclear war.
World Wildlife Fund: For nearly 60 years, WWF has worked to protect the diversity of life on Earth and the future of nature.
