Peg Kerr's Journal

Today's Give to the Max, and I wanted to raise awareness about a wonderful organization that was there when my family needed them the most: Open Arms of Minnesota.

This is a non-profit that fed my family every week for four and a half years, during the time that Rob was fighting cancer. It was begun in 1986 by a man by the name of Bill Rowe, who saw the need to feed people with HIV/AIDS, which is why I have donated part of the most recent royalties from my book The Wild Swans. They then broadened their scope to assist families living with other life-threatening illness, such as cancer (which is why we were eligible). They provide a truly delicious frozen dinner up to five times a week, per person, per household, made by volunteers in their pristine commercial kitchen, and a pantry bag, including baked treats. They consider it their mission to help with healing by providing healthy, nutritious, and delicious food.

Their big annual event is Thanksgiving dinner: they will either cook it for you, providing a hot meal Thanksgiving morning, or provide the fixings to cook it yourself. The works: turkey, potatoes, vegetables, gravy, cranberry sauce, pie. They provide Thanksgiving dinner to over 800 families.

My sister Betsy is the one who found the organization when we were looking for resources to help us, and she has subsequently volunteered in the Open Arms kitchen. I joined her last week to help the crews packing up Thanksgiving dinner.

Here's the Give to the Max link (they're getting a match if you donate today).

I'll have some pictures when I post my next digital collage.

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 )

Read about this at endicottstudio here:

The U.N.'s Plant a Billion Trees Campaign was launched yesterday in Nairobi, Kenya, and they're asking everyone (from individuals to organizations) to take part. The campaign seeks to facilitate the planting of a minimum of one billion trees around the world during 2007, pointing out that re-foresting the Earth is necessary to restore the productivity of soil and water resources, and that expanding tree cover will mitigate the build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a global warming greenhouse gas.

Program director Achim Steiner says: "The Billion Tree Campaign is but an acorn, but it can also be practically and symbolically a significant expression of our common determination to make a difference in developing and developed countries alike. We have but a short time to avert serious climate change.We need action. We need to plant trees alongside other concrete community-minded actions and in doing so send a signal to the corridors of political power across the globe that the watching and waiting is over – that countering climate change can take root via one billion small but significant acts in our gardens, parks, countryside and rural areas."

You can find more information on the Billion Trees Campaign website.

I hope that those of you who are in particular Tolkien fans will take note and spread the word. Tolkien loved trees and incorporated them beautifully into his mythology, and this seems to be a particularly good way to honor his memory. Please cross-post and spread the word.