GiveBackFilms Does Good Deeds To Inspire Others To Do The Same

While most of the youth today are too busy being self-involved, about a month ago Kyle Orrefice (18) of Atlanta, GA, and Josh Gibson (25) of Utah created the YouTube channel GiveBackFilms. The lads are dedicated to doing good deeds, videotaping themselves helping people in their communities, and then posting those videos on YouTube. They are doing this in hopes of inspiring people to help others by paying it forward and giving back.

In the latest video (below) at a gas station, Gibson and two buddies, Andrew and Robert, are seen randomly paying for other people's gas for people's gas. But they also have a video of paying for fast food at a drive through (which then inspired others to do the same thing for the drivers behind them), giving homeless people $100.00, and tipping a waitress $200.00. Initially it came out of their own pockets, but they have been pulling in some revenue from ads on YouTube, so they are hoping that will fund future projects. They hope to post a new video every Monday.

Now you might think that videotaping good deeds defeats the purpose, that one should not want or expect recognition for doing good, and in a way that's true, but they want these videos to go viral to get others to be inspired to do the same thing, maybe consider giving a waitress a larger tip, or buying someone a meal for no reason, or giving a little more to some homeless person. Nothing wrong with that.

Well done, lads. There is hope yet.



Here's some more background on the boys.

Handy Smartphone Apps For Information On Unsafe and Safe Cosmetics

Do you ever wonder whether the cosmetics or skincare items you are buying are safe, and whether there's a safer alternative? Well there's an oddly named app called THINK DIRTY, that you can download for free onto your I-Phone from the i-Tunes Store, that will do that for you. I don't have an i-Phone, but it looks like an interesting app.

The description:

Think Dirty is the easiest way to learn about the potentially toxic ingredients in your cosmetics and personal care products. It’s an independent source that allows you to compare products as you shop. Just scan the product barcode and Think Dirty will give you easy-to-understand info on the product, its ingredients, and cleaner options.

- Barcode Scanning: over 10,000 cosmetics and personal care products majority from Canada and the U.S. are currently in our database.

- Dirty Meter: a comprehensive rating is given, along with detailed (but easy-to-understand) information on ingredients, certifications, and health impacts.

- My Bathroom Rating: keep track of what’s already in your bathroom. Learn your current dirty rating, and track your progress on “cleaning” it up.

- Shopping lists: save products to make shopping faster and easier.

- UPC Submission: Are we missing a product? Scan and submit a barcode for us to look into. For registered users who submitted products, we thank you and will notify you once they are in our database.

If anyone has an i-Phone, and you download the app, let me know what you think. And of course, free is good, you have nothing to lose.

Then for those of us who have Androids, there's another similar app called SKIN DEEP from the Environmental Working Group for both i-Phones and Androids.

The description:

EWG’s Skin Deep® Cosmetics Database is the world's largest safety reference tool for personal-care products. EWG has launched this app to provide you with easy-to-navigate safety ratings at your fingertips for a wide range of products and ingredients on the market.

This Skin Deep® app has information and online safety assessments for more than 72,000 personal care products, 2,500 brands and 9,000 ingredients, culled from product labels and from the scientific and industry literature.

To calculate a product score, we tally the hazards of each ingredient and evaluate every product in relation to all the others in Skin Deep®. The safest products score well by both measures: a low hazard rating AND fair or better data availability. EWG’s ratings are the best available information you can find on the safety of personal-care product ingredients.

Download for  i-Phone. Download for Android on GooglePlay.  I have downloaded the Skin Deep app, and will update after I have a chance to see how it works.