World Water Day and Mycharity:Water

Next 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.

( Several nice pictures Delia took of me for my campaign page )

( What I did today to make the world a better place )

Health Care Reform

From the Our Bodies Ourselves blog here (via @judyOBOS), quite a few very useful links: Included among them: from the New York Times, a helpful interactive graphic answers the question, "What does it do for me?" And there's a terrific analysis from the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce that demonstrates the impact health care reform will have on each and every Congressional district. For example, in my district — MN.-5 (PDF) — the bill is predicted to, among other things:

• Improve coverage for 358,000 residents with health insurance.

• Give tax credits and other assistance to up to 159,000 families and 18,400 small businesses to help them afford coverage.

• Improve Medicare for 76,000 beneficiaries, including closing the donut hole.

• Extend coverage to 40,500 uninsured residents.

• Guarantee that 9,700 residents with pre-existing conditions can obtain coverage.

• Protect 900 families from bankruptcy due to unaffordable health care costs.

•Allow 57,000 young adults to obtain coverage on their parents’ insurance plans.

• Provide millions of dollars in new funding for 28 community health centers.

• Reduce the cost of uncompensated care for hospitals and other health care providers by $101 million annually.

Pictures for the MyCharity:Water campaign

Delia took some rather nice pictures of me for my MyCharity:Water campaign page. Here's one:





See the rest here.

Useful site for historical writers

See this site which shows the shifting European borders every century from 1 A.D. to 2000 A.D.

Hat tip to aome.