giving tuesday

I don't know about you, but I am just as tired of hearing people complain about
"the commercialization of the holiday season"
as I am tired of the actual commercialization.

So I love the whole concept of Giving Tuesday.

from wikipedia:

Giving Tuesday, often stylized as #GivingTuesday for purposes of hashtag activism, refers to the Tuesday after U.S. Thanksgiving in the United States. It is a movement to create an international day of charitable giving at the beginning of the Christmas and holiday season. Giving Tuesday was started in 2012 by the 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation as a response to commercialization and consumerism in the post-Thanksgiving season (Black Friday and Cyber Monday).

There's just no "down side" to Giving Tuesday. I love the recognition of the value of all kinds of giving - your time, your goods, your voice - not just money. I also love that so many philanthropists and organizations that can offer huge financial contributions, take this opportunity to match the tiny financial donations of ordinary folk like me. When my five dollars suddenly becomes ten, that's pretty sweet.

This Giving Tuesday website provides "near me" opportunities in the US - searchable by town or state, with a filter for category. I tried it for Non-Profits and immediately found 4 in my little town, and 1775* in Massachusetts.

An interesting website I visited yesterday for the first time is a place "for nonprofits to find pro bono help and for skilled volunteers to provide it." I don't have experience with TaprootPlus, but I do have experience offering skills to non-profits in lieu of cash, because these days my time/skills are frankly worth far more than I can afford to donate in cash. It's very satisfying when such an arrangement works out, but it can be hard to set up without a specific project/need already identified by the organization. (Psst: still hoping to hear from you, Snow Leopard Trust!) So if Taproot Plus is a functional clearinghouse for both the nonprofits and the volunteers, that sounds like a need fulfilled, right there. If any of my readers have used this website to either find free help or provide it, please share in the comments or send me an email. I'd love to follow up.

Meanwhile, today I'm going to make my small - but sometimes matched! - donations to groups I've written about before on this blog - APOPO HeroRats, the Catherine Hamlin Fistula Foundation, the Pat Brody Shelter for Cats, and of course, the Snow Leopard Trust.

Pat Brody Shelter - free access outdoor area

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And now - if you've made it all the way to the end of this post! - here is a little reward.

Some of you may remember a giveaway back in - oh my gosh, I just pulled the original images, and look - it was January 2015! 

Well, last year I had stocked up on more of these stars in order to repeat that giveaway in December. But I unexpectedly lost my laptop for most of that month and missed the opportunity.

So let's do it now!

I just checked the Snow Leopard Trust gift shop, and did not find stars amongst their many felted items, which makes these handmade stars not only pretty and cheerful, but possibly rare collectors' items!

To enter, just leave a comment on this post - perhaps sharing your own ideas for Giving Tuesday? or just say hello - and I will draw a winner one week from today. All are welcome, anywhere on the planet and on the International Space Station.

The winner will be announced on the blog and will have 3 days to provide me (by email) with a mailing address.

Good luck!

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* That state-wide number made me smile. There was rather a lot going on in Massachusetts in 1775! It was the start of the American Revolution.

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a new critter

Well, this may surprise you.

I've adopted a very large rat.

It's a long-distance adoption, though. I don't expect to ever meet my rat, or even exchange letters. My rat will be too busy to write: growing up, enjoying a year of education with a personal trainer, then living a very happy and useful rat-life in Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, Cambodia, or some other place in the world that has been made hazardous by land-mines. Can you imagine living or working or farming or watching children play in a place where the ground can blow up under your feet? Where you've seen it happen? I honestly can't.

The work these animal do, using their sensitive sniffers to safely identify buried explosives, is nothing short of amazing. The area that a rat can check in one hour would take 2 to 4 days with a metal detector!

The training process is very interesting, and the people who raise the rats and train them and work with them in the field are clearly invested in providing a high quality of life for the "hero rats." The FAQ page on the APOPO website answered all my questions about rat welfare. Because of course I had questions about rat welfare. I'm sure you do, too.

(images from APOPO website)

During training the rats are rewarded with bananas. 

They really seem to enjoy their bananas!

And if the rats' stellar work in identifying landmines (for subsequent removal by their human teammates) is not enough of a contribution to improving life for humans...it turns out they can also accurately identify tuberculosis. A rat can check the same number of samples in 20 minutes that a lab worker would check in 4 working days.

I mean, really. These are Some Rats.

Have you heard about them? You might want to check out the website.

Screenshot from website. Because CUTE.

I'm writing about this now because although there are lots of ways to support APOPO at any time, earlier today I learned that tomorrow, July 15, there will be a 50% match on any donation made to APOPO through the Global Giving site. A $10 donation is worth $15 to the charity, and so on. Only on the 15th, only between 9AM and midnight EST, only through Global Giving.

So it seemed worth writing up this quick post, just to put the information out there. In case it will be of interest to anyone, now or ever.

And in any event, you have now seen how adorable a giant rat can look while eating a banana! That picture makes me laugh every time I look at it. If my goats enjoyed bananas, that is exactly what they would look like...cheeks out to here.

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General Useful Tip Alert: this website for World Time Zones is very helpful in lots of ways when you're trying to work out what time or what day it is somewhere on the planet. (Bonus: timezone map towels!)

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