Thursday, October 2, 2008

The new widget on the right

I put up a new widget on the right-hand side of my blog there. *points* The past couple years one of my favorite bloggers (who I've been reading for years) started a contest to see if her readers could scrabble together their collective pocket change and help public school kids get things they need.

The first year she said if we all raised $30,000, she'd shave her head. We did, and she did (hilarious video of that here). Last year, she wanted to see if we could do $50,000 and if we did, she'd dress up in a tomato costume (her website is named Tomato Nation) and dance in Rockefeller Center. We did, and she did (that funny video here). Actually, last year we kept right on going, all the way to $100,000. That's right, her readership (along with some rich/famous folks making some donations when we reached certain marks) raised that much for kids to get books for their libraries and uniforms for their sports teams, all kind of cool stuff.

This year she's shooting for $100,000 again even though it's a crappy economy right now. But her readership keeps growing (she's hilarious even if she is a Yankee fan) and she figured out that she's got about 10,000 people that visit her site and if they can all chip in $10, we can make it happen. And if we do, she's taking the tomato costume on the road to Washington DC and is going to dance in it in front of the White House. LOL!

I'm putting this out on my blog because maybe you have $10 that you can spare for kids who need it. You can even choose which kids or projects to give it to. Just click on that widget over on the right.

I love getting the chance to do this every October because it's so cool to see how the little bit of money I can afford to chip in can make such a big difference. Those of us that aren't rich don't typically have an outlet where we can see giving small amounts making a visible difference. When a project on DonorsChoose gets funded, the teacher that requested it writes a thank you e-mail to the people that helped. When you donate $100, you get a letters from the kids and pictures of them enjoying the gift you gave them. How cool is that?

Anyway, help if you can, follow the progress if you can't.

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