Today I give thanks for your work, passion, dedication, courage and compassion. There is much to be done, for sure, but I stand in awe of what you have already accomplished — in Sierra Leone, Haiti, Nepal, Afghanistan, the US, Israel, Palestine and beyond. You are my heroes.

Every week, and I mean every week, I receive an email or Facebook post requesting that I support the walk, swim, ride or other personal activity of someone I know who is raising funds to help end an illness, injustice or social inequity. In the past two weeks alone, I have received invitations to support personal campaigns for breast and brain cancer, ALS, flood relief and the education of Rwandan girls. Though I cannot contribute to them all, these emails make me happy—each a testament to the generosity of the human spirit and the innate longing we each have to help make the world a better place. My thanks and a deep bow to all who are donning running shoes, bike kits, swimsuits and climbing gear for the greater good.

The most dangerous day of a child’s life is the day of their birth. I learned this from Embrace, a nonprofit founded here in the Bay Area. Embrace explains that premature infants lack the body fat necessary to regulate their own temperature so even room temperature can feel freezing cold to them. In the developed world, these babies are typically placed in an incubator until they’re able to make it on their own. But parents and health care workers caring for hypothermic infants in developing countries are left with few options, among them hot water bottles, radiant warmers, hot coals, and light bulbs. In 2007, a group of grad students at Stanford were challenged to create an intervention for hypothermia that cost less than 1% of the price of a state-of-the-art incubator. Their solution was the revolutionary blanket seen in this photo. Embrace is saving thousands of lives by donating these blankets in some of the poorest countries in the world. What better way to celebrate mother’s day than by giving a little warmth to a newborn who would otherwise not survive? And as a gift to yourself, I hope you will watch this 2 ½ minute video of Nissima in Uganda.