We mean it when we say 'help one, help many, cause a ripple.' By helping one child, you just can't predict in what interconnected way you're changing the future of the entire world... just as a butterfly flapping their wings in one part of the world can change the weather in another, helping one child can change how the world unfolds in ways we cannot know. That's been called the 'butterfly effect.'

We've been talking about it for years in our 'ripple' campaign, and it's in the animation at the end of our Concert for Hope film… now Rabbi David Nelson has linked this 'butterfly effect' to Tikkun Olam (healing the world) in his book Judaism, Physics and God; Searching for Sacred Metaphors in a Post-Einstein World (Woodstock, VT. Jewish Lights Publishing, 2005: 99). Well, this is our 'butterfly effect project.'

Our 'kids and cortisol' project will utilize simple and straightforward visualization images such as butterflies, balloons, and birds, giving children in stressful conditions (e.g., high poverty, homelessness, hospital stays, loss of loved ones, trauma…) another internal resource, commonly referred to as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, to help them cope. All children, whether highly stressed or simply dealing with the stress of growing up, can benefit from additional coping skills.