A Big, Big Thank You to my Secret Santa!

I signed up to participate in the Book Blogger Holiday Swap for the first time this year, and I was really touched when my gift arrived. I received a card from Women for Women International which said that a donation had been made in my honor. This really means a lot to me, and I know it means a lot to the woman (or women) who will be helped by this gift. I don't really need any more stuff, and as much as I love books, I am fortunate enough to be able to go out and get them on my own. I know the money donated will be put to much better use by a woman trying to rebuild her life in a war-torn country than if it had been spent on a material gift for me. So thank you! Thank you so much to my Secret Santa for this kind and generous gift!

I know who my Secret Santa is in real life-her name was on the card-but I'm afraid I'm not sure who she is in the blog world, and I know how I am about using my real name in the blogosphere. So, in an effort to avoid "outing" anyone, I won't publish her name here unless I find out that it's OK to do so. I would also love to know which blog is hers so that I can go visit! Maybe one of the lovely gals over at the Book Blogger Holiday Swap could help me out with this pickle? Or maybe my Secret Santa will make herself known to me...?

Matching Gift Will Double Your Donation to Women for Women International

A lot of you already know that I am a big fan of Women for Women International. Maybe you've checked them out and thought about giving but the time just wasn't right or you didn't think you could contribute very much. If that's the case, please reconsider. If you donate any time between now and November 15th, your donation will be doubled through a matching gift program.

Women for Women International currently has programs in eight countries, helping women survivors of war rebuild their lives through skills training, rights-awareness education, literacy training and leadership education. Many of these women have lost their husbands and other family members to war, have been raped, have not been allowed to receive an education, cannot read, cannot afford health care, have little or no marketable skills, and are now responsible for taking care of themselves and their families and rebuilding communities that have been ravaged by war.

After such war-time experiences, women often feel isolated, shamed and helpless. Women for Women provides a safe place for these women to gather and share their experiences while they learn new skills that will help them earn money for things like food, shelter, clothing, health care and education. Once these basic needs are met, women have the opportunities to continue on to become successful businesswomen or community leaders, striving for change and peace within their communities.

If you feel that this is a worthy cause, please donate soon. If you donate by November 15th, your donation will go twice as far. If you wish to donate but can't do it by November 15th, that's OK too. Your contribution will still mean a lot to a woman survivor of war.

Blogging for a Worthy Cause

Until I read about it today at fivecentnickel.com I had no idea that today was Blog Action Day.  The theme this year is poverty, and bloggers are encouraged to discuss this topic today to try to bring awareness.  Nickel has generously agreed to match food bank donations made by his readers, so please check out his post and see if you can contribute.  If not, that's ok, but maybe you will be inspired to do something else.  

I have been meaning to do a post about some of the organizations that are featured in my "I think you're nifty too!" sidebar, and this seems like the perfect opportunity. 

Habitat for Humanity "seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world, and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action."  They help build houses for people who wouldn't be able to afford a house through traditional means.  Most of the materials and labor are donated, and the houses are sold for no profit to the recipient families.  The families who receive houses must invest "sweat equity" by assisting in the actual building of the house and by helping to build houses for other families.  If they are physically unable to participate in the building process, they can volunteer in other ways.  Habitat's program is a great example of a hand-up not a hand-out mentality and it fosters a lot of community/neighborhood support by getting local people involved in the building of a house.  I've volunteered on a work site, and while there weren't many of us who knew how to build a house, there were enough people that did who could instruct the rest of us about where to pound nails, how to cut the necessary lengths of lumber, etc.  The progress we made in one day was pretty impressive, and it was a great feeling to know that you were helping to give a family a home.  

Heifer International is another great "hand-up not a hand-out" program.  Heifer works with families and communities to educate people about animal husbandry and farming techniques that are sustainable and, very importantly, relevant to their local areas.  Heifer recipients must also pass on the gift by sharing their wealth and knowledge with their community or other communities.  For just $20 you could provide a family with a flock of ducks, geese, or chicks or you could purchase a share of a llama.  A flock of birds can provide a family with protein for themselves as well as providing a new stream of income through the sale of eggs and fowl.  Sometimes this can be the difference between a child being able to receive an education or not.  The recipient family must also pass on a part of their flock to another family in need, and so forth and so on.  You can purchase anything from a beehive to a water buffalo.  This is a great chance to get a child interested in charitable giving!

Kiva.org facilitates microcredit loans to people in the developing world.  You can lend as little as $25 and know that it is going to help somebody who is trying to build a better life for themselves and their families.  Recently there was so much interest in Kiva.org that they actually ran out of loans to fund!  This is amazing, but they seem to be back on track with new entrepreneurs awaiting loans.  You can read a brief biography on all the loan applicants and decide to whom you want to lend money.  To date I have loaned out $950, $723 of which has been paid back.  Lenders don't earn interest on their loans, but then that's not really the point.  The point is that you're doing something good with your money.

Lesley's Life is Sweet is founder Lesley Byrne's way of fulfilling her mission to "help end extreme hunger, poverty and diseases in the world through the sales of [her] artisan chocolates and gourmet confections."  Her chocolates are amazing-you can read about how they made me cry here-and you can eat them completely guilt-free because by doing so you are helping to make the world a better place!  How's that for win-win?

Women for Women International is a great organization that goes into war-torn communities and helps rebuild those communities one woman at a time.  In times of war women are often the most victimized and also are the ones left to rebuild when all of their men have died in war.  These women need to know that they have rights as individuals, what those right are, how to stand up for those rights, and how to exercise those rights.  They also need to be able to provide food, clothing, shelter, and, hopefully, an education for their families.  Women for Women International's programs help women develop literacy and vocational skills, learn about their rights and become active members in their communities.  Individual women are sponsored through monthly donations, and their sponsors are encouraged to communicate with them via letters.

Of course any of these organizations will accept cash donations and, indeed, rely on them to continue doing what they do, but if you can donate your time, even better.  Please check out these organizations to see if any of them might be a good fit for you or let me know which organizations you've found that you would like to share.  

**Update-10/23/08-You all know how much fun I have finding the little coincidences between what I'm reading and my everyday life.  Well this time it has to do with what you're reading (in this case, my blog!) and my everyday life.  Don't worry, I haven't gone totally off my rocker; I realize that there's usually going to be some tie in between what I write and what's actually going on in my life, and I'm not going to start pointing it out to you all the time-(Hey, guess what!  I just wrote about going to the mall, and today, I was AT THE MALL!!  Ooooooh.).  

I have worked with Habitat for Humanity in the past, but I haven't been in touch with them recently, and while putting together this post, I was thinking, Hmmm, I really should get in touch with them again and see if they need any help right now.  Well, 3 days later, they called me!  They were trying to pull together some last-minute help for the following day's annual kitchen and bath tour and wanted to know if I could help.  I could and I did!  So, yay me!  Ok, it would have been a much bigger and better "yay, me!" if I had called them, but still.  You gotta start somewhere.