Stuck on what to get your Valentine at the last minute? I’ve got a solution that will not only save your butt, but it doesn’t require waiting in any lines, spending an exorbitant amount of money on flowers, and it will give someone in a developing country clean water for TWENTY years. Each major holiday, charity: water releases a set of witty and adorable e-cards that you can send your loved one for the low price of $20. Sure, you can get one at Hallmark for $3.99, but that card won’t give someone clean water for two decades.
In case you’ve missed the memo, a billion people worldwide (that’s 1 in don’t have access to clean water for drinking, cooking, cleaning or bathing. Lack of clean water for basic sanitation results in 80% of all sickness and disease worldwide and each year, kills more people than all forms of violence combined, INCLUDING WAR. Women in developing nations have to walk more than three hours a day to fetch water that is probably just going to make them and their children sick. Little ones are particularly at risk for waterborne illnesses, of the 42,000 deaths a week from unsafe water, 90% of them are children under the age of 5.
Now that I’ve convinced you to cough up $20 that will save someone’s life (quite literally), check out these cute cards and pick your favorite. Then send it to your boyfriend, girlfriend, mother, brother, coworker, neighbor, heck, send it to yourself. 100% of your donation goes to freshwater projects in developing countries.
If only five of us commit to sending one of these cards, we’ll have provided a whole family with clean water for 20 years. I’m in! Are you in?
Have you voted in the Chase Community Giving Ultimate Challenge Extravaganza on Facebook yet? That’s not the official name of the contest, but it should be. Chase is giving one non-profit $1 MILLION DOLLARS! Brangelina can make this happen in a snap, but for a big corporation/bank, I feel like this is pretty big. Plus, the voters decide who gets the mega donation. I’ve seen this thing advertised EVERYWHERE but I haven’t actually voted until tonight. And guess what? It’s really easy. It took me one minute, tops. All you do is become a Fan and then ration out 5 votes to the charities you think deserve them most.
The final round of voting is going on til the 21st I believe – whatever five days from now is. Here are the charities I picked (because I trust them and/or have personal reasons), but you can pick whoever you like! Just do it!
Several of SocialVibe’s charity partners are nominated, like TWLOHA and Invisible Children (who are winning by a landslide at the moment. They’re cool though- rescuing child soldiers in Uganda. Amazing cause.)
P.S. I still don’t like Chase, and am happier than ever that I am back using USAA for my banking again. Credit unions are awesome!
Today will be a quick one because I have a load of things to do (including writing my always-lengthy Things I Love Thursday) and I plan on spending most of my night watching A Charlie Brown Christmas for free on Hulu tonight. Short blog post, but huge message. Today’s daily morsel of quotation goodness is:
“We make a living by what we do, but we make a life by what we give.”
- Winston Churchill
Mr. Churchill, you are so wise! The most rewarding things and moments in life are always the ones centered around making those around us happy – people we know and don’t know alike. Would you believe that at one point in my life, I actually believed that giving was a selfish act, designed to make ourselves feel good? What a misguided child I was. Giving feels good because giving IS good, and we are built to want to help others – yes, you are born with that instinct to jump in the lake after that drowning boy!
With Christmas shopping on everyone’s mind this time of the year, I think it’s especially important to keep this message of giving in the forefront of our noggins. Here is what I suggest: go the extra mile this season. Volunteer to prepare a meal for the homeless, collect blankets and socks and donate them to your local mission, spend some time with an underprivileged child, clean out your cabinets and take those cans of nonperishables to a shelter, or even better – decide to forgo all the holiday gifts this year and buy for a family in need instead. I guarantee it will make you feel more warm and fuzzy than even the softest set of pajamas.
One of my favorite non-profits, Do Something, has a great tool called Act Now that allows you to find local volunteer opportunities around your favorite cause, how much time you have to give, and how big a group you have volunteering. Check it out here.
How are you feeling today? Pretty good? Happy it’s Friday? Amped for the holiday season? Me too. I have a challenge for you – watch these videos – any of them, all of them – and tell me how you feel afterward.
So, what do you think? Still jonesing for that $500 handbag? Still thinking about which 5 star restaurant you’re going to dinner at this weekend? Dreaming about your next vacation or complaining about your job, when 10% of Americans are unemployed? I’ll tell you how I feel: I am humbled. I am in awe. I am shocked. I am ashamed. And I’m inspired. And I think I just discovered the purpose for me living in this city I loathe so much.
Thanks to Mark Horvath (@hardlynormal) for his incredible work with the homeless community in LA and around the country, I found these videos on his site, InvisiblePeople.tv. His story is quite an inspiring one, if you have a minute, read this. Or just watch this:
I originally posted this story on the SocialVibe blog, but it is such a great campaign that I want to share it with my personal audience. The products we buy make a huge impact on manufacturing practices around the globe. Each purchase is a vote, whether you’re buying handbags, coffee, or dog food. Don’t spend recklessly, research where your money is going. Onto the post…
What kind of a handbag are you carrying? Do you know who made it? How about where it was made, or under what conditions? Invisible Children launched a new program today called MEND and we are kind of in love with it.
MEND isn’t just a place where you can buy unique and handcrafted handbags, but where you can also watch videos of and read stories about the person who made that very bag. Take for example, this video about Monica, who loves to dance, has a talent for making people laugh, and oh yeah, is a former child soldier.
Monica is just one of many of the creative handbag makers that you can learn about through MEND. All of the handbag makers are are former child soldiers, victims and survivors of the 20 year war in Uganda.
Are you ready for Halloween yet? We sure are, and this year, it’s time to take the focus away from cavity-creating candy and onto doing good around the world. Today, SocialVibe launched a new program called Click 4 Good, a virtual neighborhood of haunted houses where you can go trick or treating to benefit charity.
For each spooktacular door you knock on, you’ll be greeted not by a ghost or goblin, but by a donation that will be made to one of these incredibly worthy non-profits:
- Stand Up 2 Cancer: Aims to urgently move cancer research forward by advancing technology available to scientists and clinicians.
- charity: water: Provides clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.
- The Surfrider Foundation: Dedicated to protecting and preserving our world’s oceans, waves and beaches.
- Keep a Child Alive: Provides life-saving anti-retroviral treatment, care and support to children and families whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India.
Each visit yields a specific impact, such as 18 gallons of water for people in need through charity: water or 1 hour of HIV/AIDS treatment for a child through KCA. After you earn your impact, you’ll have the opportunity to share it on Twitter or Facebook, encouraging your friends to do the same. Each time that friend goes trick or treating, the impact grows. This has amazing potential to create enormous positive social impact around the world.
Take advantage of your time online and get some trick or treating practice in a little early this year by visiting SocialVibe’s haunted house neighborhood at socialvibe.com/click4good.
Although this interview is a few weeks old, I think I owe it to myself (and yourself) to post it here, because it is such a great cause. My good friend Pulin works at peta2 (one of our Causes on SocialVibe) and apparently finds me interesting enough to interview!
Why do you think it’s important for everyone to speak up for animals?
Because they have no voice. Alright, that isn’t entirely true, anyone with a noisy dog or bird can tell you that. What I mean is—animals are at a severe disadvantage because of their inability to speak or defend themselves against humans, but they deserve the same basic rights we take for granted. Most of the cruel practices involved in food or product manufacturing go unknown to much of the world. It’s remarkable how few people are aware of where their food comes from, how their cosmetic/household products are made, and just how much suffering is involved in our daily conveniences and entertainment. If we don’t speak up for the animals, who will?
Do you have any funny stories about your cats?
Is my name Sarah? My kitties have more personality than some humans I have met. I like to think it’s because I’ve treated them as equals, not just as pets. My fatty, Scout, is the goofiest feline you will ever meet. Sometimes I crack up just looking at her, like this morning when she was laying on her back like a dead cockroach. What really gets me is her quirky habit of refusing to drink out of anything except the bathroom faucet. My other furkid, Pepper, is a little strange in her food habits—she enjoys cashews very much, pickles, olives, tomato sauce, and pretty much all of the things cats are not supposed to enjoy. She could totally be vegan.
What are some of your favorite things about working at SocialVibe?
I love being a part of a company that is so revolutionary and one-of-a-kind. There is no one else doing anything quite like SocialVibe, so in a way we feel like pioneers. The greatest gift about working at SV is knowing that the hard work and long hours we put in are going to make a positive impact in the world. Just like any job, there are times when you think to yourself, “Why am I doing this to myself? Why don’t I just get some easy-peasy job that doesn’t take much brain power?” And then I see the wonderful projects we are helping fund, and it all becomes clear. There is no greater reward than seeing your hard work making a positive social impact—whether it’s a homeless animal who has been given shelter, a hungry child who has been fed, or a square mile of beach that has been saved.
Are there any bands we work with or campaigns we work on which are especially of interest to you?
I’m in love with the new “Breasts, Not Animal Tests” campaign with Keep A Breast. Educating younguns about the importance of early detection and prevention of breast cancer while supporting cruelty-free shopping? LOVE IT. I just got my tank top in the mail and I can’t wait to show it off!
Can you explain how the new Facebook application works?
It’s like this—you add the application, choose your favorite cause (i.e., peta2), and pick a brand sponsor. On your application dashboard, you’ll see a list of brand activities (rating videos, downloading songs, etc.) that can be completed for points. Each time you complete one of those activities, a micro-donation is made to your chosen charity. Your actions feed through to your Facebook profile, so your friends can see the difference you’re making and join in and help you earn more points for your cause. You can also receive updates about your cause’s goal progress and meet fellow supporters!
Yesterday, I turned 26. It was by far the best birthday I’ve had in at least five years, and it wasn’t just because my friend Bonnie made me homemade birthday cookies (see below) or the fact that 30 of my closest friends helped me celebrate into the wee hours of the morning at the classiest joint in all of Los Angeles – The Belmont.
Rather than receiving gifts from my family and friends this year, I asked all my friends and family to donate to charity: water and help me raise enough money to build a freshwater well for a village in Ethiopia.
Did you know that over 1 billion people in the world go without clean, safe drinking water? That to me is just absurd, and considering the wastefulness we contribute to here, I couldn’t find one reason not to do this.
So why was this the best birthday? Well, I was successful! After I raised over $400 through the help of family and friends, CEO and Founder of Mashable.com, Pete Cashmore reached out to me. Not only does Pete share my birthday, but he was also working towards his own goal of raising money for charity: water. Pete and I are both on Twitter. Thanks to his supremely impressive following, he was able to raise over $3,500 in one day. That, in addition to my small but helpful contribution of $400, and with the help of another Sept 18-birthday-Tweeter, Paul Young, we collectively raised enough money to build a freshwater well in Ethiopia. This will provide over 200 people with clean, safe drinking water.
Pete was kind enough to write a piece about our efforts on Mashable today – and you should all check it out…
The Well That Twitter Built
On September 18th 2008, Mashable‚Äôs Twitter followers donated $3536 to Charity:Water, an initiative to build wells in Ethiopia. On the same day, our Twitter friend Paul Young raised a further $637 through his Twitter and Facebook accounts. And Twitter user Sarah Townsend hauled in $400 – that‚Äôs more than $4500, almost exclusively from Twitter, in a single day. With $4000 buying an entire well to supply water to 200 people for 20 years, we can truly call this the “well that Twitter built.”
To fully understand how much this means, take a few minutes to watch this video!
THANK YOU to all who contributed, to Pete, Mashable, Twitter, and charity: water for making this all possible. BEST birthday gift ever.
100% of the proceeds fund water projects in Ethiopia.
To continue supporting charity: water or one of 30 other great causes, sign up for SocialVibe, who have raised over $28,000 in free donations for charity: water!
Wonderful, you found my blog! I'm Sarah, a writer, activist, believer, artist, lover of pretty things and cats. I'm also a newlywed (aww). To learn more about me, just click here. I hope my blog brings you a little bit (or a lotta bit) of happiness today.
don’t have access to clean water for drinking, cooking, cleaning or bathing. Lack of clean water for basic sanitation results in 80% of all sickness and disease worldwide and each year, kills more people than all forms of violence combined, INCLUDING WAR. Women in developing nations have to walk more than three hours a day to fetch water that is probably just going to make them and their children sick. Little ones are particularly at risk for waterborne illnesses, of the 42,000 deaths a week from unsafe water, 90% of them are children under the age of 5. 
Why do you think it’s important for everyone to speak up for animals?
