Alton Brown @altonbrown: What I’m giving’ the missis for Valentines this year hefr.in/xPqtAi

Patricia Heaton @PatriciaHeaton: V-Day- me hubby are basically doing what Mike and Frankie Heck had planned – nothing! But you could do this: @Heifer. hefr.in/wJQZnQ

Eva Amurri Martino @4EvaMartino: No Vday gift ideas? Ask someone to ‘bee yours’ this Valentines Day with a gift of bees from @Heifer! :hefr.in/z2N41n

Ashley Judd@AshleyJudd: What touches my heart on Valentine’s: Helping others help themselves: @Heifer: Dazzle your sweetheart with a Heifer: youtu.be/bH-wQ7m-gS”

Mia Farrow@MiaFarrow: @Heifer Print out our Heifer Valentine kids cards to share with classmates, friends and family:hefr.in/zjuYze”

Susan Sarandon for Heifer International

Cause Effect Agency arranged this chance happening with a cow and Heifer International helped promote it. The point? To highlight Heifer’s work of alleviating poverty around the world.

This video is only the beginning of the story of why Susan and her daughter were standing in a field to promote Heifer, for the rest of the story stay tuned for the big picture set to be released in May of 2012.

Longtime Heifer supporters Patricia Heaton, Adrian Grenier, Ed Asner, Lauren Bush, Mia Farrow, Alton Brown, Mary Steenburgen, Ashley Judd, Joe Mantegna, Eva Amurri, Janie Bryant and Serinda Swan all took time out of their busy schedules to Tweet for Heifer!

Heifer’s unique holiday gifts were also prominently featured on national television when longtime support Jane Kaczmarek appeared with Eli the sheep on The Wendy Williams Show, and Dan Zanes joined a goat, rabbits and ducks on Fox and Friends with longtime supporter and anchor woman Alisyn Camerota.

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Jane Aronson, the executive director of WWO managed to pull off a star-studded fundraiser worthy of the potential donors she had assembled there, names like Andrew Garfield, Academy Award nominee for The Social Network and star of the upcoming Spider-Man movie and his co-star Emma Stone.

Andrew Garfield and Okello Sam at the WWO Gala 2011

Mary-Louise Parker was also in attendance and with her co-activist Okello Sam, founder of Hope North, a school for former child-soldiers and Chris Talbott, founder of Cause Effect Agency, the sole U.S. fundraiser for Hope North.

The link between WWO and Hope North was made weeks earlier when a phone call between WWO and Cause Effect Agency established a common goal for helping children and noted the many areas of overlap such as WWO’s school for orphans near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Hope North’s continued support for the many children who are orphaned because of the fighting in Uganda.

The call also included talk of a sister-school opportunity and the intention of further discussion on the subject. The shared vision is there and the gala served to reinforce these intentions. A world without orphans or child-soldiers may only be a dream, but a partnership for good between these two amazing groups is becoming a reality.

While this was happening Sam Okello, founder of Hope North, a school for former child-soldiers and orphans, many affected by the war between government forces and the LRA, was planning a trip to New York. We at Cause Effect Agency, sole U.S. fundraiser for Hope North, saw the opportunity for Okello to tell his story about how the LRA affected him personally. On Tuesday, October 25th, we arranged for Okello to be interviewed by ABC Australia on the radio news program PM with Mark Colvin.

Then in November we arranged a segment for Okello on The Brian Lehrer Show, the highest rated morning show on NPR NYC. Chris Talbott, founder of Cause Effect Agency joined him for the interview to highlight Cause Effect Agency’s work as Hope North’s sole U.S. fundraiser.

Okello Sam and Chris Talbott on Diplomatically Incorrect

Chris Talbott and Okello also appeared on UN-TV’s Diplomatically Incorrect, an internet TV program that focuses on world affairs and international politics. On the show the two were joined by Bill Ayers, founder of WhyHunger, and Muhamed “Mo” Sacirbey. The four of them discussed the politics of Uganda and the general state of international aid in the present era of economic crisis.

Hope North is also an ongoing partner in the WhyHunger/Hard Rock campaign Imagine There’s No Hunger in collaboration with Yoko Ono.

Okello Sam thanks the staff at WhyHunger for their continued support of Hope North.

For those who don’t know, Hope North is a school for former child-soldiers and orphans in western Uganda. The new documentary about Hope North, entitled The Thing That Happened, was shot at the school in the fall of 2010. Directed by Andrew Walton with original score by Michael Rohatyn and Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys; this film short has already received awards both from the Woodstock Film Festival and the United Nations Film Festival in San Francisco.

Trailer for The Thing That Happened

Okello's closing monologue from The Thing That Happened

Mary-Louise Parker took special interest in the piece and decided to host a screening of her own at the Mandarin Oriental on Columbus Circle. A few of the attendees included Joy Stoddard from the Whole Planet Foundation, Mo Sacirbey from Diplomatically Incorrect, the actor, stylist, and designer, Phillip Bloch, Brooke Wall, the founder of The Wall Group, and Dinda Elliot, Global Affairs Editor for Condé Nast Traveller.

Hok Sokleang, Russell Simmons, Chea Lingya, Susan Sarandon, Somaly Mam, AnnaLynne McCord, Phil Kowalczyk

Many high-profile supporters came out to show their support for the cause, notable guests included Susan Sarandon, AnnaLynne McCord, Petra Nemcova, Padma Lakshmi, Ron Livingston, Russell Simmons, Chloe Flower, Phil Kowalczyk (President of The Body Shop), Her Excellency Hun Kimleng, Ambassador Luis C de Baca (Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the State Department), and Melanne Verveer.

Co-Chairs for the event included Susan Sarandon, Lauren Bush, Deepak Chopra, Kerry Girvin, Bianca Mead, Andy and Laura Heery Prozes and Shelley Simmons.

We were delighted to have AnnaLynne McCord present The Body Shop Americas with a Voices For Change award, and Petra Nemcova to present Russell Simmons with his Voices For Change Award.

One particularly exciting moment in the evening was when AnnaLynne McCord jumped on stage to help run the live auction, with her support, SMF raised over $90,000 in less than ten minutes to support SMF’s work.

AnnaLynne McCord with Somaly Mam

To experience Heifer’s work, Serinda visited villages in the Svay Chrum district, where she met families whose living conditions have improved through gifts of chickens and pigs from Heifer International. “Being able to go on a trip into the countryside with Heifer International was an amazing experience for me. The work that they do is so diverse and vast it blew me away,” Swan said.

Then while visiting Somaly Mam Foundation’s work, Serinda visited one of Somaly’s rescue shelters. After hearing the stories, and seeing what these women and children face everyday, she knew that there was something she could do: throw herself out of plane at 18,000 feet to raise $18,000 for the Foundation’s work and in hopes to bring awareness to end sex trafficking!  A few of the notable people who signed up to help included Russell Simmons, Shay Mitchell (“Pretty Little Liars”), Wilmer Valderrama (“That 70′s Show”), Mehcad Brooks (“True Blood”), Laz Alonso (“Avatar”), Colin Ferguson (“Eureka”), Jimmi Simpson (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”), Agnes Bruckner (“Hawaii Five-0″), Dom Lombardozzi (“Entourage”), Gabriella Wright (face of Kenzo), and Mandy Rain (recording artist).

Serinda Swan's personal fundraising page for "18 for 18"

Cause Effect Agency helped assemble the event host committee, which included Emmanuelle Chriqui, Laurie Holden, and CEA founder Chris Talbott, and celebrity attendees included Angel and AnnaLynne McCord, Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt, Shay Mitchell, Ashley Rickards, Guy Sebastian, Mandy Rain, Chloe Flower, Ally Maki and Chloe Wang. In addition to participating in red carpet interviews with the press and shooting video for the Foundation’s “Slavery Exists” campaign, several of these special guests took the stage during the program to highlight Somaly’s work ending slavery, and inspire the crowd to action. The launch received terrific coverage from media outlets including Variety, Just Jared, and Look to the Stars, among others.

Visit the SMF Facebook page to view photos from the event, and click below to watch Ron Livingston, Rosemarie DeWitt, and AnnaLynne McCord explain why they’re such dedicated supporters of the Foundation.

For more information on how you can become part of PROJECT FUTURES Global and take action in your own community, visit http://projectfutures.somaly.org/action.