World Water Day and Mycharity:Water
Mar. 22nd, 2010 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrNext month is my fiftieth birthday.
I'm not quite sure exactly how I'm going to celebrate it, but one thing's for sure: I certainly don't need presents. I don't need more stuff. If there's anything the past couple years have taught me, it's to be grateful for what I already have.
As you know, I've also been thinking a lot in the past couple years about what I can do to make the world a better place. I've been following a lot of nonprofits on Twitter, and one of them particularly caught my attention: Charity:Water (@charitywater on Twitter).
Today is World Water Day. Did you know that a billion people don't have access to clean drinking water? That's about one out of eight. In three years, Charity:Water has sent $10 million dollars into the field to implement 2,321 water projects in 16 developing countries. That's over a million people served. Charity:Water makes it possible for people to set up their own fundraising pages, and they suggest that people donate their birthdays to the cause. I've been thinking about this idea for a number of months, and today's being World Water Day gave me the push to actually do it.
My own MyCharity:Water page is here. If I can raise $5,000, that will build a freshwater well in a village, which can provide 250+ people with clean drinking water. This campaign begins today, on World Water Day, and will last for three months, as individual MyCharity:Water campaigns do. 100% of the money that you donate at my MyCharity:Water page will go to actually fund the well (Charity:Water uses other funds to cover their administrative costs). The Mycharity:Water site Will track every dollar donated on my page to a specific water project. When the water project this campaign has helped fund is completed in 12 - 18 months from end of this campaign, Charity:Water will contact me and everyone who contributed to my campaign and send us pictures and the GPS coordinates of the new well this money raised. If we manage to raise the entire $5,000, there will be a plaque commemorating my campaign mounted at the well itself.
So I hope you'll consider giving a donation, whether $5 or $10 or even $50 for my fiftieth birthday. I've kicked off the campaign with a $50 contribution of my own. Charity:Water is a 501(c)3 corporation, so if you are in the United States, your contribution is tax deductible.* If you have any ideas or suggestions of what I might do to raise money for this campaign, I would welcome them in comments to this post. Many thanks.
*While Charity:Water can accept Paypal donations if they're made to the organization in general, if you want to contribute specifically to my campaign for my fiftieth birthday, they are set up to take contributions via credit card or check only. Either way, as I said, your contribution would be tax deductible.
What I did today to make the world a better place Set up a MyCharity:Water page for World Water Day. Donated my Twitter updates for World Water Week to One Week For Water. Joined TwitCause and sent out a tweet (#planttrees) that will prompt Dryer's and Edy's to donate $1 to the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. Contacted my sisters to let them know about Help-Portrait and A Child's Right as they seem to be organizations that could help for the type of work being done on the Mexican mission trip.
I'm not quite sure exactly how I'm going to celebrate it, but one thing's for sure: I certainly don't need presents. I don't need more stuff. If there's anything the past couple years have taught me, it's to be grateful for what I already have.
As you know, I've also been thinking a lot in the past couple years about what I can do to make the world a better place. I've been following a lot of nonprofits on Twitter, and one of them particularly caught my attention: Charity:Water (@charitywater on Twitter).
Today is World Water Day. Did you know that a billion people don't have access to clean drinking water? That's about one out of eight. In three years, Charity:Water has sent $10 million dollars into the field to implement 2,321 water projects in 16 developing countries. That's over a million people served. Charity:Water makes it possible for people to set up their own fundraising pages, and they suggest that people donate their birthdays to the cause. I've been thinking about this idea for a number of months, and today's being World Water Day gave me the push to actually do it.
My own MyCharity:Water page is here. If I can raise $5,000, that will build a freshwater well in a village, which can provide 250+ people with clean drinking water. This campaign begins today, on World Water Day, and will last for three months, as individual MyCharity:Water campaigns do. 100% of the money that you donate at my MyCharity:Water page will go to actually fund the well (Charity:Water uses other funds to cover their administrative costs). The Mycharity:Water site Will track every dollar donated on my page to a specific water project. When the water project this campaign has helped fund is completed in 12 - 18 months from end of this campaign, Charity:Water will contact me and everyone who contributed to my campaign and send us pictures and the GPS coordinates of the new well this money raised. If we manage to raise the entire $5,000, there will be a plaque commemorating my campaign mounted at the well itself.
So I hope you'll consider giving a donation, whether $5 or $10 or even $50 for my fiftieth birthday. I've kicked off the campaign with a $50 contribution of my own. Charity:Water is a 501(c)3 corporation, so if you are in the United States, your contribution is tax deductible.* If you have any ideas or suggestions of what I might do to raise money for this campaign, I would welcome them in comments to this post. Many thanks.
*While Charity:Water can accept Paypal donations if they're made to the organization in general, if you want to contribute specifically to my campaign for my fiftieth birthday, they are set up to take contributions via credit card or check only. Either way, as I said, your contribution would be tax deductible.
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What I did today to make the world a better place Set up a MyCharity:Water page for World Water Day. Donated my Twitter updates for World Water Week to One Week For Water. Joined TwitCause and sent out a tweet (#planttrees) that will prompt Dryer's and Edy's to donate $1 to the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation. Contacted my sisters to let them know about Help-Portrait and A Child's Right as they seem to be organizations that could help for the type of work being done on the Mexican mission trip.