Priceless Gift of Life

I just ran across a story (by columnist James Ragland) about a woman who donated bone marrow on her birthday because the need was there.

I know that for some people this is not an option for health reasons or religious reasons, but for those of you who CAN... what have you donated lately? Consider gathering with a group of friends to donate blood. I have a friend who manufactures an excess of platelets so she donates her platelets! Donate plasma! Are you brave enough to donate bone marrow? What the heck, research it and find out.

Too nervous about all that squishy stuff? How about hair? Locks of love? Not too scary.

And if you just can't bring yourself to do it for whatever reason (bald, nervous, anemic, etc) how about volunteering your time? Find out when the next blood drive is and take some jugs of juice down there. Call first and ask what you can do to help. It all counts. Fill up that karmic bank account of yours!

Youth Kindness

I ran across a blog post I wanted to share with all of you. Kathy over at This Crazy Adventure Called Life wrote a post about two incidents wherein children playing sports showed remarkable kindness.

Both stories are heartwarming, but I'll let Kathy tell the story at her post: One for the Good Guys. Go check it out if you have a minute.

By the way, this morning my son's kindergarten class had "Moms and Muffins" day. The kids made cards for all the moms and we each got a long stem rose and everyone got to gorge on muffins. Yum. Next week they are having "Dads and Donuts". Do the schools in your area have something like this that you can participate in? Consider donating some flowers or a container of glitter, a pack of paper or maybe a couple of boxes of muffin mix. Or offer to make batches of muffins for the day. Schools ALWAYS need money and help, so any little thing you can do is one less dollar they have to take out of their budget. Teachers will love you for it.

And by the way, even if you don't have kids in school there are still things you can do to help. Call the principal of the school and ask what you can do to help support your local school system.

Global Knowledge, Global Tolerance

It is said that the more experience people have with other cultures, the more they travel in other countries, the more accepting and tolerant they are of other people in the world.

And the opposite could be true -- the more we limit ourselves to a homogeneous environment, to a vanilla culture with narrow boundaries, the less we feel comfortable and open to people who are different than we are.

What does that accomplish?

My Wonderful World is running a letter writing campaign to encourage schools to put Geography education back into the curriculum. Apparently over the last few years, geography has become less and less a focus in the education of Americans with some staggeringly embarrassing statistics such as only half of young Americans can find New York on a map and only 37% can find Iraq on a map.

Head over to the web site and help send a message to schools. Keep Americans educated on the world around them. There's a lot of cool stuff going on in the world. They shouldn't miss it.

[photo: noticelj]

Another 42 Cent Change for the World!

Well, this one is about to go up to 44 cents in May so you should ACT NOW and save two cents. :-)

I think most people are familiar with Amnesty International's great work for human rights via their letter writing campaigns. In America we have a long tradition of government official listening when we rise up and create a big voice for change. (Well, mostly.) But I have never been entirely convinced that this works in other countries where democracy is not at work.

Recently I ran across a great article entitled, "Does Letter Writing Really Work?" It briefly talks about the Urgent Action Network and had an inspiring video. It also has links to some of their success stories and a link where you can join to get notices on ways you can take action through letter writing.

If nothing else, just watch the video. It's moving (and technically cool). But if you can spare the time sign up for the Urgent Action Network. Even as little as one or two letters per month could make a difference. A little time and a postage stamp. And actually you can even do some campaigns by email, so really it's just carving out the time.

For a woman being beaten and thrown into a metal shipping crate for two years, I'd give up my favorite TV show or my lunch hour once a week. Will you?

charity: water

One in six people on the planet don't have access to clean, safe drinking water.

I didn't find out about this in time to tell you for their Valentine's Day drive, however, you should check out this great site called "charity: water". They have been running a water drive where you can send an e-card for $20 to a loved one which pays for water for someone for 20 years. Your e-card recipient can then choose the country that your donation benefits.

The really super cool thing I like about charity: water is that 100% of their proceeds goes directly to the various water projects they fund.

Really awesome charity.

P.S. I like to put these things into perspective. Let's see $20 bucks for you is about... 5 trips to Starbucks for flavored coffee, 2 or 3 movie tickets (depending what part of the country you're in), or a 2-medium-pizza-deal from Pizza Hut. You could probably do without those one time to get someone water for 20 years. (The pizza, anyway, maybe not the Starbucks!)

Good Search

What would you say to a search engine that gives money to your favorite charity whenever you use it? All you have to do is just use that search engine and CHA-CHING! Money goes to the charity of your choosing.

I'd say that would be one heckuva cool idea.

The good news is that it really does exist and it's called "Good Search". And the other good news is that it's really easy to set up. All you do is type in the charity of your choice and hit the "verify" button and it will tell you right away if it's one you can use or not.

I use the RRP Foundation as my charity, because it's one that supports families with children who have Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis (which my son has). It's a little known non-profit organization, not anything famous like the ASPCA or Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, but still I was able to find it in there.

I hope you will try out this great little charity tool. If you're searching anyway, why NOT use Good Search? The success stories at the site are inspiring. Check those out while you're there.

And if you don't have a cause that you already feel passionate about, feel free to use the RRP Foundation! They do a lot of good for people with this rare affliction.

Lost Penny Day

Last month I wrote a post about using your found change to do good.

Well, I found out today that someone actually invented a holiday called "Lost Penny Day" (Feb 12) to go with that back in 1995.

So, today go out and "spread change". That's my favorite pun so far!