Entertainer and new father Nick Cannon says he knows what it's like to go to bed on an empty stomach. He remembers times in his childhood when his family turned to their local food pantries for help.

"I make light of it now, but There were times when I went without food completely," says Cannon, 30, who, with his wife Mariah Carey, became parent of twins on April 30.

Cannon recalls shuffling between his mother, father and paternal grandmother's homes. By the age of 11, he had lived in North Carolina, California, New York City and Atlanta.

[Read: New breed of Americans going hungry.]

"You do what you have to do with what you have. Sometimes I'd eat sugar in a sandwich or just plain old starch to get full. Things were never easy until I had the ability to step out on my own and make legitimate money."

Those memories have inspired Cannon to pay it forward.

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Can you believe how quickly this week flew by? It was certainly a good one for the charity world.

To keep you up-to-date on the latest charity headlines, Kindness is kicking off "Charity News Highlights," a new weekly series featuring a roundup of these items each Friday.

So without further ado, here are some of this week's highlights:

CHARITY OPPORTUNITIES & CONTESTS

For kids:
- Kids who are doing good and giving back to their communities have until May 31 to enter the 2011 Kids Who Give contest at www.kidswhogive.com for a chance to share their story and win up to $2,500 for their chosen charity and a trip to New York City. To learn more, connect with Kids Who Give on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/FarmRichSnacks; follow @kidswhogive on Twitter for all the latest updates; or visit the Kids Who Give YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/farmrichkidswhogive.

For pet owners:
- For National Pet Week, the FiXiT Foundation launched a new philanthropic initiative to help pet owners spay/neuter their pets. GetYourFix.org allows pet owners can post a need for a "fix," and "funders," who want to have a direct impact on ending animal overpopulation, can connect with them and sponsor their pet's surgery.

For wounded veterans:
- For the fifth straight year, wounded warriors were welcomed by the White House as Wounded Warrior Project's Soldier Ride comes to Washington, D.C., this week. President Obama visited with 30 warriors and their guests on Wednesday, May 4, in advance of the official Soldier Ride events on Friday and Saturday.

Warriors of all ability levels participate in Soldier Ride, which takes place in 13 cities across the United States in 2011. There are state-of-the-art adaptive hand cycles, trikes, and bicycles to accommodate warriors with various injuries and disabilities, as well as unmodified road bikes for riders not requiring adaptive equipment. WWP provides equipment and support at no cost to warriors. To register to ride, get involved, or donate to Soldier Ride, please visit soldierride.org.

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***UPDATE: Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton's clean cookstove initiative (more details below) is getting a big boost of support from actress Julia Roberts, who is the new "Global Ambassador" for the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. And just in time for Mother's Day, Roberts will be interviewing Secretary Clinton about the initiative tomorrow night on "Extraordinary Moms," airing on The Oprah Winfrey Network at 8 p.m. ET. During the interview, they'll be discussing how access to clean cookstoves can improve the health and well-being of mothers and families around the world.****

Original post date: September 24, 2010

More than 1 million die each year from malaria and from tuberculosis. Yet, there is another killer, a silent one, that results in even more deaths.

Speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative on Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shared some surprising statistics on this deadly killer. Each day, almost three billion people gather in front of open fires to cook their meals. The major problem with this? The air they are breathing -- the toxic smoke that is released from burning wood -- contributes to diseases like pneumonia and results in two million deaths per year.

And this is not just a major health issue, Clinton told the crowd. The same toxic smoke is polluting the environment and putting women -- those who have to search for their fuel -- at risk for sexual violence.

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Mother's Day is here, providing you with the perfect opportunity to honor that special mom in your life.

With the clock ticking down the minutes, here is a list of gift ideas that not only send your love and thanks but also give back (something which mom would surely be proud of!):

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By Enid Borden, president and CEO, Meals On Wheels Association of America
Special to USA TODAY-Kindness

On Sunday, many homes will be filled with laughter, gifts and good food as we celebrate the women who have given life and love to their children. Mother's Day is a joyous occasion for most moms - but not all. In fact, millions of elderly moms will be alone and without enough food this holiday. I find it so disturbing that in this, the richest nation on earth, there are so many moms who are hungry and forgotten.

Our organization, the Meals On Wheels Association of America (MOWAA), sponsored a national research study, "The Causes, Consequences and Future of Senior Hunger in America," that revealed disturbing statistics. One in nine seniors - that's over 6 million people - face the threat of hunger today, and the numbers are growing.

More often than not, those hungry seniors are women. And it is likely that she is a mother. These staggering findings underscore our moral imperative - as Americans and as children of mothers very much like those who are now going to bed hungry - to put an end to the disease of senior hunger.

[Additional Mother's Day coverage: "Mother's Day gift ideas that give back".]

So often the senior moms who depend on Meals On Wheels have either outlived their children or their children live a great distance away. That is precisely why MOWAA established our annual national Mother's Day campaign, Meals for Moms. For the past month, we have been collecting thousands of messages of hope, which are in the process of being distributed to our Meals On Wheels programs across the country. They will be delivered as Mother's Day cards, along with a nutritious meal, to thousands of homebound senior moms across America. Our goal is to send 50,000 messages.

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Setting aside political differences for a day of unity, President Obama extended an invitation to former president George W. Bush earlier this week to join him at Ground Zero in New York City on Thursday to mark the killing of Osama bin Laden. The former president decided to decline the invitation.

"President Bush will not be in attendance on Thursday," said his spokesman, David Sherzer (via the New York Times). "He appreciated the invite, but has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight. He continues to celebrate with Americans this important victory in the war on terror."

According to USA TODAY's The Oval, the president completely understands Bush's position:

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What would you do with $100,000? Twelve individuals get to decide that very question today, having just been announced as a recipient of the Ford Foundation's first and one-time only "Visionaries Awards."

According to the 75-year-old organization, the Ford Foundation Visionaries Awards were created to help raise the profile of leaders whose innovative efforts are making a positive impact on the world in big ways.

"We can't think of a more fitting way to mark our [75th] anniversary than to spotlight the people who continually infuse new energy and ideas into the effort to solve our most pressing social problems," said Luis Ubiñas, president of the Ford Foundation, in a news release. "They are thinkers and doers — people who pursue their vision with determination and a laser focus on impact."

The honorees were first nominated and then selected by a committee, using the following criteria:

- Long-term pioneering and innovative work;
- Exceptional leadership in their respective fields; and
- The scale and impact of their work (to reach beyond the local level to the regional, national and global).

The $100,000 awards do not come with any strings attached, except that the money will used to advance the recipient's work.

The recipients of the Ford Foundation Visionaries Awards are:

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Attention New Kids on the Block fans: It's time to dust off your favorite NKOTB T's (if you still have them). The chart-topping boy band is gearing up, once again, for a world tour this summer.

New to the lineup? Well, for one, they've got a couple of new singles out with that other popular boy band -- The Backstreet Boys -- which is coming along for the ride this summer.

But what caught my eye is the band's commitment to raising money to fight breast cancer this time around, thanks to band member Danny Wood's insistence that the band partner with ticketing website Tickets-for-Charity to do it.

As you may recall from a previous Kindness post, Tickets-for-Charity works like any other online ticket seller except that, each time you purchase a ticket, part of the ticket sale goes to the performer's charity of choice (in NKOTB's case, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure) and another part goes to your charity of choice from this list of Tickets-for-Charity's non-profit partners. The company also takes an industry-standard service fee to operate the platform and manage donations. So a win-win for all.

I caught up with Wood last week to learn more about the tour and why this cause is so important to him.

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To see the power of a mentorship at work, just ask young poet Idamaris Perez.

A junior at St. Jean Baptiste High School in New York City, Idamaris ("Ida") didn't think poetry was for her, growing up. But once she was paired with mentor and professional writer Demetria Irwin, her whole outlook on the craft changed.

"Before I had this mentality that poetry was just boring and too romantically corny. It sounds weird and funny, but that's how I felt about it," she says. "Afterward, I learned that there was so much more to poetry. Poetry is like a beautiful jigsaw puzzle one first has to take a piece at a time to understand and then put them all together to see the true, complete beauty of it."

[Read below for a sample of Idamaris' poetry.]

Ida and Demetria were brought together last September by Girls Write Now (GWN), a N.Y.C.-based non-profit that matches young women with seasoned writing professionals for mentoring and writing instruction. From one-on-one weekly mentoring sessions at places like "libraries, bookstores, intimate cafes, Central Park and lots of other cool places," explains mentor Demetria, to reading sessions in public, each mentee is nurtured and encouraged in a way that resonates best for them.

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***UPDATE: As of Sunday, the death toll sits at more than 340 from the tornadoes and thunderstorms that tore through the South last Wednesday night and early Thursday. The National Weather Service estimated there were 266 tornadoes in the 24-hour period, a new record for a single storm system in modern times (via the WSJ.com). Read below for an updated list of ways to help the storm victims.***

Original post date: April 28, 2011

The death toll from severe storms and tornadoes that whipped through five Southern U.S. states on Wednesday jumped to a staggering 250 today, according to the AP.

Alabama's state emergency management agency said it had confirmed 162 deaths.

"We expect that toll, unfortunately, to rise," Gov. Robert Bentley told ABC's Good Morning America.

In Mississippi, officials reported 33 dead while Tennessee raised its report to 33. Another 13 have been killed in Georgia, eight in Virginia and one in Kentucky.

On Alabama Gov. Bentley's request, President Barack Obama approved emergency federal assistance, including search and rescue assets. So far, about 1,400 National Guard soldiers were being deployed around the state.

"Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by this devastation, and we commend the heroic efforts of those who have been working tirelessly to respond to this disaster," President Obama said in a statement.

While rescue efforts continue, here are several ways to help those effected by the devastating storms:

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