The Innocence Project

Few people know that we do this....Every year when Ella has a birthday or it is a time to give gifts to her, in her honor we give a gift to an organization we believe in. Usually it is all over the map on who we give to not just one particular place. One year we even bypassed a garage sale with tons and tons of things to give to a local woman's shelter called Beta house. The first year we did this I donated my hair to an organization called, Children with Hairloss http://www.childrenwithhairloss.us/ a grassroots organization with an office in my hometown who tends to appreciate more than the larger organizations out there. We bought a flock of chickens through Heifer International http://www.heifer.org/l. We gave last year at Christmas to sponsor a night in the Ronald McDonald house for a family in need.

The reasons we choose what we choose in morphing. Some places just show up on a radar at just the right time, others we seek out with a purpose to teach. For example for Ella's birthday last year we gave through Kiva http://www.kiva.org/ which gives out micro-loans. You can choose Christian organizations which to give through which I searched and found. Once I found an organization I looked through the profiles of people in need which features their story, family information, and pictures. I choose a young woman in her 30's who happened to live in Rwanda. I saw a report on TV years ago whose hook to get you watch it said, "In what country of the world are you an woman in your 30's and lucky to be alive?"In 1994 a mass genocide killed 800,000 people within 100 days. It crushes my heart with sadness to think of this. Nearly a million people..... They say virtually every woman over 12 was raped in order to create a large population of the opposing tribe. Its unspeakable. When I saw this woman, Beatrice Mwangiyiki, I knew we had to help. So I choose her to teach Ella about love and hate. To teach her not to turn a blind eye, and to help the most helpless. One of these days I'm going to write out all the stories that match with why we choose certain things and put it in a scrapbook album...someday....which is partially why I wanted to write about it here. I am forgetting some things....Anyways.

So Ella's birthday was Sept. 7 (as all the clown festivities pictures attest to)......This year, months ago I came across the organization called The Innocence Project http://innocenceproject.org/ I felt very strongly about giving to it because there are people who have been wrongly accused. The sad part about it is that these people were usually railroaded by the system because of their race and/or level of poverty. They could not get a decent defense because they could not afford it. I want to show Ella the values that we hold in our heart that we value all people, in any color, race, or economic statuses. We also value justice. It grieves me that some people had a hard dose of life from the get-go then are railroaded by the system and live many years is gross jails, alienated from their family for many many years for things they have not done. Or, God forbid, are executed as innocent men.

So we want Ella to know that that she is not only our gift but a gift to others also! Because she lives she has effected change in the lives of many others...... My hope and prayer is that these tiny seeds planted in faith will blossom and grow in her heart and she'll know she has had great purpose for her life from the beginning.

Some info from The Innocents Project web site......

There have been 258 post-conviction DNA exonerations in United States history. These stories are becoming more familiar as more innocent people gain their freedom through postconviction testing. They are not proof, however, that our system is righting itself.

The common themes that run through these cases — from global problems like poverty and racial issues to criminal justice issues like eyewitness misidentification, invalid or improper forensic science, overzealous police and prosecutors and inept defense counsel — cannot be ignored and continue to plague our criminal justice system.

• Seventeen people had been sentenced to death before DNA proved their innocence and led to their release.


• The average sentence served by DNA exonerees has been 13 years.


• About 70 percent of those exonerated by DNA testing are members of minority groups.


• In almost 40 percent of the cases profiled here, the actual perpetrator has been identified by DNA testing.


• Exonerations have been won in 34 states and Washington, D.C

Below is a new movie slated to come out about a wrongful conviction...