Established in 2002, the Connecticut Farmland Trust is the only private statewide conservation organization dedicated solely to permanently protecting Connecticut’s farmland. The Connecticut Farmland Trust holds agricultural conservation easements that protect 2,096 acres of farmland on 26 farms around the state, has assisted partners in the preservation of 789 additional acres, and serves as a leading resource on conserving Connecticut’s working farmland.

Meryl Streep served as a Honorary Chairwoman at the 2002 Celebration of Connecticut Farms, a benefit for the preservation of the state’s farmlands that took place at Averill Farm in Washington Depot. The issue of farm preservation was the reason that the Hartford Food System, the Connecticut Farmland Trust and the Working Land Alliance hosted the event, to benefit their year-round work on this issue. If the state continues to lose farmland to development at its present rate – 9,000 acres a year – Connecticut will have no farms by the middle of this century. “I don’t know about you, but 50 years go by very fast,” Streep said in her comments. A member of a community-supported agriculture farm in northwest Connecticut, where the actress and her family have lived for the past 22 years, she urged her listeners to “remember that no farms means no food. It would be crazy to let this precious resource be paved over and developed,” Streep said. “If we lose our farms, we lose a part of our heritage.”

The now deceased Clothes Off Our Back Foundation was founded by actors/spouses Bradley Whitford (The West Wing) and Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle) to benefit children’s charities. Their idea in raising money was fairly simple and it resonated with other celebrities. Stars donated their Emmy and Golden Globes attire and Clothes Off Our Back auctioned it online for children’s charities. The foundation took aim to impact the welfare of as many children as possible with the charities it supported. The sale of a dress worn by Jennifer Aniston funded immunizations for 50,000 African children. Each year since, Clothes Off Our Back has selected three children’s charities – one international, one national and one local to the Los Angeles area – to which they can deliver the most impact. The 2009 beneficiaries, for example, were Hope North, a rehabilitation center for Uganda’s child soldiers; Feeding America (previously Second Harvest), a U.S. food bank; and The Art of Elysium, an L.A.-based program for critically ill children.

In 2007 and 2009, Meryl Streep’s gowns that she wore to the Golden Globe Awards (made by Caroline Herrerra and Angel Sanchez) were auctioned at ClothesOff Our Back. In an interview with Daily News Los Angeles, Kaczmarek stated that, “Meryl Streep has always been generous. I’m always happy when people I know get nominated, because we can ask them to donate their dress.”

The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation started as a grassroots movement by pioneers who refused to accept the long-standing dogma that a spinal cord, once injured, could never recover or be repaired. In 1995, when Christopher Reeve was injured, the APA was one of the first places he and Dana turned. By 1999, the APA and Christopher’s foundation came together and was later named the Christopher Reeve Foundation, which added Dana’s name to its moniker after her untimely death in March 2006.

Meryl Streep has been supporting the foundation since it was renamed in Reeve’s name in 1996, frequently attending their “A Magical Evening” gala. In 1998, she was part of the “Christopher Reeve: A Celebration of Hope” television benefit, which originally aired on ABC. She further joined “Circle of Friends”, which was part of the American Paralysis Association (APA), a non-profit organization founded in 1982 to encourage and support research to find a cure for paralysis caused by spinal cord injury and other central nervous system disorders. Meryl has been a regular guest on the “A Maigcal Evening” Galas to raise awareness and benefit the Chrisopher Reeve Foundation. In 2007, she received the Dana Reeve Hope Award.

The Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, the first such center at a medical school in the United States, was founded in 1996 to help promote a wider understanding of the human health consequences of global environmental change. By focusing on environmental change through the lens of human health, the Center is able to reach people in concrete, personal terms they can relate to and understand. The Center is an official Collaborating Center of the U.N. Environment Programme and works alongside many other organizations throughout the world. The mission of the Center is to help people understand that our health, and that of our children, depends on the health of the environment, and that we must do everything we can to protect it.

On April 4, 2003, Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver hosted a benefit in New York City aimed at bringing attention to the ways in which today’s globally changing environment affects human health. The fundraiser – a gourmet dinner held at Blue Hill, the acclaimed New York restaurant – provided support for the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Meryl has also hosted the Global Environmental Citizen Awards three times, presenting awards to Bill Moyers in 2004, to Al Gore in 2005 and to Prince Charles in 2007. And in 2008, Meryl narrated the “Healthy Ocean, Healthy Humans”, which can be watched below.

The Arts Education Partnership provides information and communication about current and emerging arts education policies, issues, and activities at the national, state, and local levels. Their major projects and activities include commissioning and disseminating research about critical arts and education issues; maintaining and linking databases on state-level policies for arts education; and convening national forums around significant themes and issues in the field. The Arts Eudcation Partnership’s partners include federal arts and education agencies, state departments of education, state arts agencies, national arts and education organizations, and arts and education collaboratives at the state and local level.

In 1996, Meryl Streep hosted a 12-minutes video, “The Arts and Children” in 1996, created for the Goals 2000 Arts Education Partnership. The Partnership is a national coalition of business, education, arts and government groups committed to maintaining and enhancing arts education in the nation’s schools. “Young people who learn the arts do better in every phase of their lives,” says Streep in the video. “The Arts and Children: A Success Story shows why the arts must be part of the education of every child in every school in America,” says Jane Alexander, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. “This video powerfully captures the need for quality arts education in our schools,” said United States Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley. “I urge school administrators and school boards across the country to consider its message.”

Hello, I’m Meryl Streep. The video you are about to see is about our children. And about the challenges that face them in school, life and work in today’s society. You’ll see evidence of powerful ways to help them meet those challenges – the arts. Experts from business, science and the academic world discuss research that proves young people who study the arts do better, in every other phase of their lives. But the most eloquent voices are those of the students and their teachers. Let’s join together to keep the arts strong in the lives of our children. It’s important for them and it’s important for us.

Amnesty International has a proud history of working with musicians, actors, comedians and others in the artistic community. They have added their impassioned voices to those of millions of other Amnesty International members worldwide and used their skills and talents to spread the message. Art for Amnesty is a global project that brings together international artists of all disciplines their patrons, management and friends in a collaborative effort to support Amnesty International’s work for human rights.

Meryl Streep became a supporter of Amnesty International in the 1980s, joining their nationwide benefit concerts tour in 1986. “A Conspiracy of Hope” aimed to increase awareness of human rights and of Amnesty International’s work on its 25th anniversary. The tour spread information about Amnesty International to a new generation, inviting them to take action on behalf of prisoners of conscience. Some of the world’s leading rock artists gave two weeks of theirtime, at the height of the summer touring season, “A Conspiracy of Hope” featured U2, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, Joan Baez, and the Neville Brothers. They travelled from west to east across the United States, joined en route by other performing arts stars. Meryl Streep and Anjelica Huston participated at the New York/New Jersey tour finale in Giants Stadium. To spread the word on “A Conspiracy of Hope”, Meryl hosted a Public Service Announcement for Amnesty International.

All dictators have fantasies that they can suffocate and divide people in their own country. We know that what they’re afraid of most is world opinion and criticism of their tyranny. Your efforts and prayers saved my life. And thanks to your support I can have an opportunity to live as a human being. A letter sent to us at Amnesty International by a released prisoner of conscience, the republic of Korea. Join us, you’ll never forget the first prisoner you free. (Meryl Streep, Amnesty International, 1986)

In 2003, Amnesty International selected “Stolen Childhoods”, a documentary narrated by Meryl Streep about the 215 million children for whom life is nothing but work, for its “On Campus” travelling film festival.

American Forests is a world leader in planting trees for environmental restoration, a pioneer in the science and practice of urban forestry, and a primary communicator of the benefits of trees and forests. American Forests is the nation’s oldest nonprofit citizens’ conservation organization. Citizens concerned about the waste and abuse of the nation’s forests founded American Forests in 1875. American Forests’ Ecosystem Restoration and Maintenance Agenda presents our core values and seeks to build support for our policy goals. These goals focus on assisting communities in planning and implementing forest actions to restore and maintain healthy ecosystems and communities.

Meryl Streep taped two public service announcements for “American Forests” in 2001. In the PSAs, which aired on ABC, CBS, HGTV, Animal Planet, and dozens of local network television affiliates and cable companies across the United States, Meryl encourages television viewers to plant trees with “American Forests”. Their tree-planting projects help restore a wide range of ecosystems including many that have been scorched by wildfire in recent years. The USDA Forest Service, a partner in the campaign, is currently matching every tree planted for wildfire restoration. “I support the tree-planting efforts of American Forests’ Global ReLeaf campaign,” says Meryl Streep. “The millions of trees being planted this year through Global ReLeaf’s ecosystem restoration projects will help clean the water we drink, remove pollutants from the air, and provide habitat for an array of species from salmon to salamanders, bears to bald eagles for generations to come. I encourage everyone to join American Forests’ Global ReLeaf campaign and plant trees to improve the environment.”

APLA Health, formerly the AIDS Project Los Angeles, is dedicated to improving the lives of people affected by HIV disease; reducing the incidence of HIV infection; and advocating for fair and effective HIV-related public policy.

In 2001, Meryl Streep designed the artwork for an AIDS Project Los Angeles’ holiday card campaign, alongside Hilary Swank, Lucy Liu, Valerie Rae Miller, Betsey Johnson, Peri Gilpin, Sean Hayes and Imitation of Christ. Created through a partnership with Soolip Paperie & Press, the holiday card program raised funds for services provided to men, women and children living with HIV and AIDS. Creativity kits created by APLA and Soolip Paperie & Press inspired the celebrities who let their imaginations run wild. Proceeds from the holiday card campaign will help support services that AIDS Project Los Angeles provides each year to more than 10,000 men, women and children living with HIV and AIDS including a food bank, child care, housing assistance, and professional dental care. The agency also provides prevention and treatment education, and advocates on local, state and federal levels on AIDS-related legislation.

AID Darfur supports the UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) life saving work with Darfur’s refugees. For over five years, The UN Refugee Agency has been at the forefront of bringing humanitarian aid and relief to the hundreds of thousands of people uprooted by the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region. In one of the world’s worst refugee crises, security concerns and massive logistic obstacles persist, yet UNHCR staff continues battling the elements to help the displaced. Across the border within strife-torn Darfur, Sudan, UNHCR is providing protection and community services not only for those internally displaced, but also victims of the violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DAR) and Central African Republic (CAR). At least 2.7 million Sudanese have been forced from their homes and thousands of refugees from the DAR and CAR have crossed the border to escape the crises in their own homelands. Despite the dire security situation, UNHCR is providing live-saving assistance to thousands of victims while developing women and youth centers to address protection, social and legal issues. For women, these centers will also address health needs and provide support to victims of sexual violence.

In 2006, Tony Bennett and Meryl Streep launched a national television campaign to bring aid to war-torn Darfur. “Don’t be distracted. Don’t turn away. Don’t be overwhelmed. Don’t be too busy. Don’t delay. Darfur can’t wait. Go to www.unrefugees.org,” Streep said in one of the public service ads. Streep and Bennett were appealing to Americans to donate to USA for U.N. Refugee Agency’s relief effort, which provides food and shelter for the millions of people who have fled their homes since fighting broke out in the Sudanese region in 2003. “They say the situation in Darfur is deteriorating. Let me translate: People are dying. We must do more than just watch the news,” Bennett said in the ads. U.N. aid workers have established 12 refugee camps, 33 women’s shelters and 11 youth centers for those displaced by warfare in Darfur. One hundred percent of donations made to the Refugee Agency will go toward providing emergency relief to the victims.

Since its founding in 1934 by a visionary 23-year-old woman named Marie Bullock, The Academy of American Poets has been the country’s most spirited champion of poetry as a force of beauty, truth, and cultural upheaval, working tirelessly at everything from protecting the artist’s right to challenge the status quo to standing for social justice to inviting prominent poets into underprivileged schools. Each year since 2003, Poetry & The Creative Mind raises money for the programs of the Academy of American Poets, including National Poetry Month, which was established by the Academy in 1996 and is now the largest literary celebration in the world. The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit organization founded in 1934 to foster appreciation for contemporary poetry and to support American poets at all stages of their careers. Meryl Streep was part of Poetry & the Creative Mind eight times since 2004, is a Honoary Co-Chair today, and has read poems from Elizabeth Bishop, Walt Whitman and Sylvia Plath, among others. Have a look at the summaries below.