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"Children hit by the Alabama tornadoes or the Haitian earthquake are getting a second chance to have a birthday. \nWhen 16-year-old Morgan Burnard went to Haiti for her birthday, she didn't know her impulse to help would turn into a non-profit organization. Burnard created Morgan's Sweet Sixteen Foundation, a non-profit that is travelling to Haiti this July to give birthdays to 300 orphans.\nThe goal is to give the orphans a touch of happiness by celebrating something many Westerners take for granted. Ironically enough, many of the children don't even know what a \"birthday\" is, so Burnard is calling it a \"celebration of life.\"\nYou can check out the foundation's site or Facebook page for ways to help, videos, and information on the trip. Burnard, a Californian, is hoping to celebrate birthdays in a different country every year. [Ed: we had some trouble finding the non-profit's information on Guidestar.org.]\n\n\n\n\nAlabama's Lost Birthdays has a similar approach but for U.S. children affected by the recent tornadoes in Alabama. The group is accepting donations of party items and presents and then tries to recreate the birthday plans for children 12 years and younger who had their birthdays \u2014 or worse \u2014 taken away from them.\nBurnard's campaign is a great example of teenagers helping out teenagers while the Alabama campaign shows the power of a community to support its own. What do you think? Amidst all the relief efforts, is it also important to help the emotional well-being of the community? Sound off in the comments.\nImages courtesy of Alabama's Lost Birthdays"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2011/06/16/social-media-birthday/>