For lack of a better name, this board is for anyone involved with fundraising efforts or to announce a fundraising effort.

It was inspired by the Washington Trails Association (WTA) Hike-A-Thon where hikers can raise money for building and maintaining trails in the state of Washington. The Big Climb which I participated in would also qualify, where I raised money for leukemia research by hiking up the tallest building in Seattle.

In a nutshell, if it's for a good cause and you're trying to raise money for it, this is the place to post. =)

-- Ryan

Might I suggest a shorter name - perhaps Activism or Community Activism, or perhaps just "saving the world...one letterbox at a time!"


:)

Quote

Might I suggest a shorter name - perhaps Activism or Community Activism, or perhaps just "saving the world...one letterbox at a time!"

Saving the World sounds good. =)

-- Ryan

excellent choice my friend :)

I guess I'd like to preface this post with a little propaganda. Ryan threw this board out there for us green/holistic/natural/ecofriendly/sustainable/activist/environmentalist
folks, and I'm going to take full advantage of the opportunity to post and air my personal exploits for all it's worth! I encourage everyone to indulge in this topic.

I hope that some of you are eager volunteers. Having served a year in the federal AmeriCorps program as an environmental educator, I'd say that it is no picnic, but you gain great insight into how crucial volunteerism is. I went through first responder training as well as emergency disaster preparedness training. I'm also first aid and cpr certified and it's a great feeling to know that I can help others.

I encourage you all to volunteer if you have local trails organizations, help with annual beach clean-ups - coast week programs and take responsibility for your share of the natural environment use. By that I mean that you not only just walk trails once to find a letterbox, but that you actually take the time to come back if you live locally and volunteer on the trail. Sometimes I get carried away with enthusiasm for my hobbies, but it is my hope that folks who letterbox are also concerned, responsible citizens that are aware of their natural surroundings.

More often that you realize, folks that plant boxes in their area are also avid trail-users. For instance, I regularly walk on some of the trails and in parks where I have boxes located. This doesn't mean that I'm always checking on my box, it means that I am enjoying the area and doing my part to maintain the surroundings for others to enjoy as well.

I'm stepping down from the soap box, I hope that others will share some of their positive contributions to their local natural areas and community in this board. Thank you Ryan!

Phyto

i'm a strong supporter of preserving our natural heritage and the ecology of our world. I'm glad to see this message board and would like to see conversations about how each of us do our share to help.
For example, i dream of homesteading one day. for now i live in suburban cincinnati among the malls, cars, tons of people! yuck! i'm working slowly toward my dream of growing a lot of my own food, raising chickens, using rain water, supplementing the power to my home (solar? still learning on this), etc...

"i'm working slowly toward my dream of growing a lot of my own food, raising chickens, using rain water, supplementing the power to my home (solar?"

Wow! Major flash back! I grew up on a small farm. I learned to milk goats at age 9. We had a lawn mower for the front yard but the goat trimmed all the pastures.

We had chickens and a huge garden. We had our own milk, eggs and vegetables. My uncle owned a dairy (then later changed it to beef) farm. He would slaughter a cow and all the family would divide it for the freezer.

We only had a shallow well that ran out of water in the summer. We would only flush the toilet when absolutely necessarily (only after a number 2!), bathed in an inch of cold water in the tub or took a bar of soap outside and showered under the downspout in the rain.

We had solar panels on the house and cleaned out all the dead trees out of our woods and those of others for firewood in the winter.

My brother and I tended a tremendous garden and my mother canned everything without salt. We went to different properties that had fruit trees that no one cared about and asked permission to pick the fruit. Then my mother canned and froze it. My brother and I walked miles through the woods and fields and collected berries.

We had only 3 acres of land but our neighbor owned a Christmas tree farm on either side of us. We never took one of those trees for Christmas, though, since we had the same old artifical tree that we put up every year. The neighbor allowed to go anywhere on his property as long as we respected the baby trees. I never stepped on one. We travelled so far that Ma had a horn mounted on the house to call us in for dinner.

When my Dad left us and took all the money we were not afraid. There was enough food in the root cellar and the freezer so that we would never go hungry. The only thing that my mother wanted was the house. We could all make it just fine on whatever we had. We were resourceful.

Now I live in the suburbs. I can't say that I want to go back to those days, but I can say that I learned a great deal. I can also say that the freedom I felt outdoors back then is something that I have always carried with me. That level of self-sufficiency has stuck with me as well. It wasn't done out of a desire to "save the world", but nonetheless, it taught me a great deal about respecting it.

My neighbors had a good laugh at me raising ducks in the bathtub this past spring, too! Well, you know what they say: you can take a girl out of the country but not the country out of the girl (or something like that...)

Thank You, for the beautiful and amazing personal history!! I enjoyed reading your post very much!!!

Scheherezade

In the spirit of fun and healthy competition (especially for a very good cause) i am challenging all ladies of AQ to make a pledge donation >>>>>for AMANDA<<<< in the Hike-A-Thon to raise money benefiting Washington state trails. I've made a pledge for donation for Amanda at this link: http://www.atlasquest.com/hikeathon/log.html
and you can too!

just to clue the fellows in....if you think "boys rule" then they can make a donation for Ryan!! ;-D

Just a note to let everyone know that today was the last day of August and my last chance to get in some mileage for the WTA Hike-a-thon. My goal was only 31-35 miles for the month and I finished today with 45.1 miles!! (we'll call it an even 45 for monetary consideration)... And I have already collected over $550 dollars and I have promises for another $195!! Last minute pledges are certainly welcome! Every little bit helps! I have pledges from $4.50 to $50. I have to turn in all my money to the WTA by September 7th! Thanks to everyone who has supported me all month! And remember, every pledge recieves a paperback by a Washington State Author as a thankyou!

:-)

-Amanda From Seattle

Before all our calendars fill up....

Since we are a group of outdoorsy folks, I thought I would mention the upcoming International Coastal Cleanup Day, September 17th.

You can do a Google search to find particularl information in your own state, or go to:

http://www.coastalcleanup.org/

Hope to see you out there! Robb and I will be back out for our third year in Emeryville California, cleaning up the shore of the San Francisco Bay.

Lisascenic

I was kind of hoping Amazon.com would provide that nice donation link like they did for the tsunami last December, but if they are they haven't posted anything about it. But it really isn't necessary--if you want to donate to the Red Cross, you can do it from their website at http://www.redcross.org

If you'd rather donate through Amazon, they have a link on their website at http://www.amazon.com/gp/philanthropy/red-cross.html/102-9367029-2833714 you can use. I don't know for sure, but it might be easier to donate their if you already have an account--they might fill in some of the "missing blanks" of the form automatically. Either one will get the donations to the right place, though.

-- Ryan

I would also add the following site:

http://www.secondharvest.org

It's an network of food banks, working in local communities throughout the ravished area and beyond. Here in Houston, for instance, the Food Banks, working with the Red Cross, are going to have to feed tens of thousands of people 3 meals a day. Much like with the Red Cross, Food Banks can leverage your donation, so that your cash provides more meals than the food you might donate.

Everywhere I go, I am running into LA and MS refugees. At the CVS, I gave directions to USHumane Society workers who were preparing to go to LA to try and conduct animal rescues. At the grocery store, I met others who were staying with family for what will now be an extended period. So many people I know have friends and family who are coming here to stay, probably for months. The magnitude of this is unbelievable, as I am sure that what I've seen here is true all the way across the South.

Dewberry

Silly Ole Bear and I work for The Salvation Army, so we would be remiss if we didn't add this from the official press release:

The Salvation Army asks people who want help those affected by Hurricane Katrina to visit www.salvationarmyusa.org or call 1-800-SAL-ARMY or visit any Wal-Mart or Sam's Club.
o The Salvation Army is deeply grateful for the generosity of contributors like Wal-Mart, which yesterday donated $1 million to help its neighbors in the wake of Katrina.
o Monetary donations are encouraged at this time to help meet victims' most immediate needs.
o A $100 donation will feed a family of four for two days, provide 2 cases of drinking water and one household clean-up kit, containing brooms, mops, buckets, and cleaning supplies.


Thanks, y'all!

As you probably know from watching the efforts on the news, Houston has become a major staging ground for evacuees. Besides the bond all of us on the Gulf Coast share of knowing that a hurricane could come this way, many of us here in Houston survived or in our particular case missed by 2 inches the flooding of Tropical Storm Allison.

The city has certainly rallied, but providing support to evacuees will stretch our social services infrastructure to the max (and it was already stretched). I have been working with the largest food bank in the area. As a yardsstick, the food bank distributed more than 25 times as much food to the local shelters and food pantries yesterday as it does on a normal day, and yet the demand is still high. Food and supplies are streaming in from throughout the city, the state and the country. The Bank has to figure out how to increase capacity quickly, so that donations can be processed and distributed quicklly to those in need.

The same is true of our local Salvation Army, our Goodwill Industries, our JobWorks programs, and our school districts, as we try to accomodate so many who have absolutely nothing. All of the agencies here are doing heroic things trying to make sure that Katrina's victims feel as welcome as possible, given the ordeal that many of them have endured and the hard road that is yet ahead. Yesterday, I met a family of 45 who were staying in a two bedroom apartment. Although they are not technically homeless and therefore they don't count in the official shelter figures, clearly they need the support of multiple agencies in order to figure out how to get through the next few weeks and the rest of their lives.

These scenes will be played out in communities across the entire US as people come to stay with friends and relatives or are relocated to anywhere in the country there is available shelter space. I urge you to check with your local food banks, Salvation Army, Red Cross, church, jobs program or charity of your choice. The national organizations do a terrific job, but it is the local agencies on the front lines and they need support as well.

Went on a little longer than I meant to, but hey, this board is entitled "saving the world," and that requires a lot of words and a lot of effort.

Dewberry

Yes! This event will alter many southern states that are absorbing the majority of the displaced citizens. What to do with the entire population of a major US city? It's staggering...

Examples: Two county hospitals where my hubby works have taken more than 300 new patients in 48 hours. I know a nurse in Birmingham who tells a similar story. Their entire neo-natal unit is now filled to capacity and they are moving new babies to Memphis. Many patients (including the babies) come without family or paperwork showing their medical history, or clues about medications--it's almost a guessing game. New national laws restricting the release of medical information (HIPA) will mean people calling to look for their relatives or babies can be told nothing over the phone. They'll have to wait. (How maddening that will be!) Nursing homes are trying to make room for the elderly and frail. Atlanta has taken more than 40,000 people so far. (We're farther away than Houston, but they are reaching us now by air force planes landing at Dobbins AFB.) The GA Tech Collusieum is full and they are filling new venues. Many people who are here say they don't plan to go back to NO. That's a lot of new citizens in a hurry!

Please donate to Red Cross, Salvation Army, Second Harvest, or a relief agency that you trust. This will be a long and difficult journey for everyone in the US, and particularly in the southeastern US.

Use the following website to evaluate charitable organizations you plan to support. How efficiently is your dollar and donation used? Where does it go? Who gets it? Many answers here! Local, national and international charities are included.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/

You might be pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised by what you learn... As with all financial choices, this is a great tool to empower you to make a knowledgable decisions.

I realize not all of us are "rubberstampers" in the commercial sense, but for those of us who are, i think this is a great idea..

Quote

September 3, 2005

Dear Stamping Friends,
USArtQuest has found a small, yet significant way to help those who
will for some time, be living in makeshift housing of our devastated
south. We know that once the evacuees have reached a point where
essential life-needs are met,they will also need something to keep
their spirits up.

The employees of USArtQuest will begin assembling Card Art Kits on
October 1. These kits are to benefit those suffering from their
overwhelming sense of loss, by providing a bit of art therapy. Hands
can stay creatively busy, while helping hearts heal. Although the
process of evacuating and relocating may take several weeks or
months, our project will also take that long to assemble.

This is how you can participate:
Please gather your friends, your cardstock and pretty Christmas
stamps, new, old, juvenile, pretty, elegant, cute and in-between –
all just begging to be used. Stamp and emboss at least 6
Christmas/Holiday cards WITH ENVELOPES and send them to USArtQuest.

DO NOT color them or do anything to embellish them in any way, other
than to stamp and emboss. Pre-layering images is acceptable. We want
nicely stamped, but plain cards. PLEASE PUT POSTAGE ON THE ENVELOPES
and 6 cards into one zip-lock bag. If you use dark cardstock, please
enclose a piece of white paper, so that personal notes can be written
with regular ballpoint pens.

USArtQuest will supply the brushes, watercolors, stickers, additional
paper/card, markers and the oodles of donated creative materials, as
well as do the assembly, packing and shipping of the kits to the
affected areas. Those who receive the kits will have, for at least a
few hours, the opportunity to sit, paint, embellish and finish the
cards for their friends and family for the holidays. We all know that
something as small as sending or receiving a card can be very
important. But, more importantly, these handmade cards may be the
only gift they can give this year.

Our goal is to send 200 kits, each kit having enough materials for 12
people. (That means a staggering, 72 stamped cards per kit.) If we
receive more cards, then we will assemble as many kits as the cards
support. We would like to ship the first pallet of kits, by mid-
October. If my arrangements to personally distribute the kits does
not happen, (my sister lives in Houston), then we have asked that
Points of Light Foundation and the Salvation Army to begin
distributing the kits in late October.

If you would like to include ribbons, stickers or other creative
materials not commonly carried by USArtQuest, we will also include
them in the kit boxes. If you are able to participate, please begin
sending your cards, with postage attached and/or materials to:

USArtQuest, Inc.
7800 Ann Arbor Road
Grass Lake, MI 49240
ATTN: We Care

With heartfelt thanks and prayers for our neighbors,
Susan
president
Susan Pickering Rothamel
USArtQuest, Inc.

Dear friends--

We're all focused on the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts right now, but I've been planning this event for awhile now, so I'm hoping a few of you can help with this one, too!

As a letterboxer, one of the things I can do pretty well is walk, so when there's a good cause I can help out by walking, I'm there.  And I'll be there on October 1 from 6:00 p.m. till 9:00 p.m..  The event is called Light the Night, and we'll walk on Hollywood Beach, in Hollywood, Florida, carrying lighted paper balloons to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  Two friends of mine have relatives who are fighting leukemia, so this one's pretty important to me, and I'm asking for your help.

For anybody who wants to help, naturally I'd *LOVE* any contribution you can make.  All you have to do is go to my personal fundraising page at: http://www.active.com/donations/fundraise_public.cfm?key=ltnST.AMAND and fill in whatever amount you can manage.  Or, you can hand/send me a check, made out to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, if you'd rather.  Or cash.  I'll make sure it all gets to the right place!

For those who can't participate right now, believe me, I get that, too!  We can only do so much, and I thank you for taking the time to read this.

Thank you!

DebBee

That rhymes. *heh*

Anyhow, just wanted to let you non-premium members know, I've decided to donate all money from new premium memberships in the month of September towards helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Just another incentive to give 'till it hurts, as TurtleMcQ would say.

I know some people out there loath the idea of paying money to get premium member clues--profit off of our beloved hobby? Blasphemy! Well, I figure this might also be a good excuse to become a premium member and know the only people who will 'profit' from it are the victims of Katrina. Save the world, and get premium member only clues as well.

-- Ryan

Great idea Ryan!!!

One more thing, any letterboxer (or AQer) who sponsors me for any amount whatsoever, will receive a "tree hugger" silicone bracelet. The purchase of those bracelets (that would be my purchase of them, since you're getting them free <g>) will benefit The Rainforest Site and will also, "plant a tree to provide sanctuary to monarch butterflies and help clean our air."

So for one pledge, you can help people with blood diseases, the rainforest, and monarch butterflies! Oh, and anyone who breathes, too.

Pretty sweet deal!

DebBee

Do you have an extra hour or two this Saturday? Why not join the International Coastal Cleanup?

http://www.coastalcleanup.org/welcome.cfm

Clean up your shores, clean up your streams. Just show up, and the organizers will put you to work.

There's a lot of trash in out waterways. Why not join the cleanup?

In 2004, there were so many soda cans picked up that every resident of Vermont could have had two.

Last year, the cigarette filters picked up (if stacked end to end) would have stretched to the moon and back, twice.

We'll be cleaning up along our portion of the San Francisco Bay.

Lisascenic and Robb

what a riot!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0964190702/qid=1138393927/sr=1-13/ref=sr_1_13/002-2119039-0492846?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

note that the binding of this book has a long cotton string attached to it.

LOL

ohmagodohmagod! That is so funny! I wonder if my library has it...

We are moving and I am trying to get rid of the last bit of clutter (I'm not a neat freak, but I don't hold on to useless items.

We were given a gift tray of walnuts, chestnuts, misc. nuts after the holidays. We haven't opened them. I was wondering if it is a good idea to put them out for the squirrels, or take them to the woods.

What would you suggest I do with this tray of nuts?

Another wonderful activity I discovered last year was free-cycling. I have given away a nordictrak, working dishwasher, leftover flooring planks, a mirror, not quite full propane tank, all-in-one printer and unused printer inks. It beats sitting all day for a few dollars. I highly recommend this method of decluttering and keeping things out of the landfills.

speedsquare

Quote

Another wonderful activity I discovered last year was free-cycling. I have given away a nordictrak, working dishwasher, leftover flooring planks, a mirror, not quite full propane tank, all-in-one printer and unused printer inks.

I'm pretty sure you gave away an old PDA as well. ;o)

Speaking of which, I've been making very good use of it lately. *nodding* I've downloaded a bunch of AQ clues to it and plan to use it to find some boxes real soon. (Originally, it was going to be yesterday, but that fell through. Perhaps today if things work out!)

Even better, I've got a few elite testers using their PDAs to download clues. I've still got some work to do before I make the feature live, but the PDA is definitely not going to waste!

-- Ryan

Cool, cool, cool! I can't wait until you provide the ability to download to your PDA. This is one of the PERFECT uses for technology.

I love that you are always plotting some cool new thing for AQ. WOOHOO! Go Ryan! And GO all you testers out there!

Oh, yeah!!!! And one PDA! I forgot about that; everything else gets posted to the freecycle group. It's really incredible the number of people that wanted the printer, inks, and dishwasher. But the wood?? I had 25 requests in less than one day. If I had to take it to the landfill, it costs 15-25 dollars a truckbed full. This way, I save money and make a lot of people very happy.

I cringe, though, when I see what some people are "Wanting." It's hard to be nonjudgmental when someone wants a specific brand of satellite dish, video games for children, and any number of luxuries. I don't post wants, but I filter the wants to see if I have something more to get rid of.

I'm so glad the pda project is coming along. I don't have/don't want one, but I look forward to the rave reviews from the elite testers.

The weather has been warm, but to rainy to letterbox this weekend. I shouldn't be out boxing until I get my house sold! All my lb stuff is safely tucked away at the new place. I carrried it over at closing and I haven't been out since January 22nd. I am going bonkers.

speedsquare