For the months of July, August and September, we've decided to follow Mbali's advice about putting our own oxygen mask first. Our Featured Cause will be 29 Gifts.
This community has accomplished so many amazing things over the last year.
• We’ve helped California 29Giver Elysia Skye and breast cancer survivor raise $10,000 to fund a much needed surgery.
• We’ve raised $6000 to send Mbali, our 29 Gifts Spiritual Advisor, go on a humanitarian singing tour in South Africa, where she and her choir were invited to do a private performance for Nelson Mandela and raised lots of money for many worthy causes.
• We raised enough money to help Charity: Water provide a well that will give clean water for a village of hundreds of people in Africa for decades to come.
• We’ve even provided hundreds of pairs of garden gloves for the Seattle Youth Garden Club in Seattle, which helps under-served youth learn life skills and business concepts.
But as you know, right now, the 29 Gifts coffers are nearly empty, which hinders us from doing some larger projects we’ve been planning for the next twelve months. For example, we’d like to join Beauty Without Borders in Afghanistan to build beauty schools and give women a way to support themselves, thereby overcoming the oppression women living there have endured for centuries. We’d like to help Greg Mortenson’s mission to promote peace in the conflict plagued countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan by building schools for the communities’ children. We're looking into joining forces with women in Bahrain to overcome the societal stigmas they live under. We'd like to help Call+Response get the word out and END global slavery.
But all of planning and implementing all of these projects is time intensive for the few people who work for 29 Gifts and right now we're in danger of not even being able to cover payroll for these people past July.
We want to move forward in the world and raise our collective voice together to send out the positive energies and inspire the world wide change that was the original intention of the 29-Day Giving Challenge.
There are a couple of ways you can support 29 Gifts over the next three months:
1. Invite your friends to join the challenge and help us strengthen our collective voice..Our goal is to have 29,000 committed 29Givers by 9/29/09. We feel that there is strength in numbers and that the more members we have, the more power we have to bring about big changes in the world. We feel that by coming together and sending out our collective positive energy, we can help this world be a better place – but we need your help to make that voice louder and stronger.
2. Chip in to our Operating Expense Fund and Play Gift Tag
The amount of support we saw in reaction to My plea for financial help in the last week left me speechless and humbled. I have been astounded at the number of donations that came in – proof of the incredible giving spirit that this community embodies. Thanks to all of you, the past due bills have been paid so the immediate stress is over.
However, we'd like to raise $4400 in the next three months, to help cover basic operating expenses like payroll, hosting fees, graphic design fees and web application fees. This will give us some breathing room until the book and our new line of 29 Gifts merchandise is released in October, which will finally give us a much-needed revenue stream. So please continue to play Gift Tag and chip in. Every dollar counts and every donation of $29 or more receives a set of 29 Gifts Gift Tags, which you can pass on to friends to spread the word about our movement.
I want to take time to say THANK YOU to each one of you who have given to help so far! Some have made contributions of $1... some $29 and a few even as large as $50 and $100. No matter what amount you've contributed, I want to stress that it makes a huge difference to us!
Well, it just got worse until finally today I realized it was strep throat (I have had it many times, but this time it crept up, masquerading as a cold on the first day). I hope that I didn't inadvertently pass it on to anyone. Still spiking fever...
you don't need to feel bad about your teen moving out. sometimes it's for the best for all concerned, at least for awhile. relief is a natural feeling especially if things have been bad for a while. it's nice to let people go ahead of you in line,...
does anyone know where i could get this book in time for Christmas, preferably for $100 or less? it's $114 on Amazon but they can't promise delivery by then. please let me know, my son really wants it. *** The Red Book (Liber Novus) – C.G. Jung
Day 10, I gave myself the day off!
Day 11, I became conciously aware of giving people the right away in traffic and at Walmart. I let someone go in front of me at the checkout.
Day 12, I gave myself permission to feel ok, even relief after my teen...
We had a beautiful fall weekend, which I squandered by barely getting out of my pajamas.
Yesterday, we were lucky that our friend had all three of our kids for a sleepover and I got to give my day Seven gifts. A local couple did a fundraiser dinn...
Today was a light giving day. I checked in on my friend's husband. She is in Egypt for 2 weeks and he doesn't really get out much. Someone checks in on him each day and today was one of my days. Did my giving on the clicking sites. Called my frien...
Oh Dawn, what a greaqt give! I can just imagine this man's reaction whne he tries to remember who he was with and should he know you. You have started my day off with a great big grin just thinling about it.
it was a "warm up" because all the holds on this climb were really big and easy to hold onto. =) Easy moves, stretching out. The picture makes it look more intimidating than it truly is. =)
Oops! I guess I haven't blogged in awhile! :P
Day 17: Actually got the teddy bears for the Ft. Hood survivors to the post office! Yippee! :o) I also made another food bank donation at the grocery store.
Day 18: Volunteer day at the school. I als...