Charitable Gift Giving

We surf the Web to find good products that help out a great cause.

Charitable Gift Giving header image 1

More Great Gifts for Book Lovers from GoneReading (including the cutest bookmarks on the planet)

April 8th, 2012 · Literacy

Since our last post about the great organization GoneReading International, they’ve added a whole new set of products for book lovers.

When we last posted about them, they had mostly T-Shirts and mugs. But since then they’ve added a whole bunch of other great gifts that are perfect for the reader (or the person you’re encouraging to be a reader) in your life.

Know someone who’s fanatical about the Twilight Series, the Vampire Diaries, or one of those other popular vampire books which I just don’t get? 🙂 This bookmark is perfect for them, especially if they happen to have an older sibling or friends who are always arguing with them about how Harry Potter is better.

vampire wizard bookmark

By the way, in the interest of equal time, there’s also a My Wizard can Beat Up Your Vampire version.

Looking to decorate a reading room or library in your house? Their fine art prints are the perfect decoration. Here’s a print of Van Gogh’s “Oleander and Books”.

oleanders and books van gogh

Not to be confused with Ollivander, the guy who runs the wand shop (and no, I’m not sure why I’m obsessed with Harry Potter today).

Do you know a REAL bookworm? Here’s the ultimate game for them. It was a Dark and Stormy Night is a board game where each player picks a card and reads the first line of a book, and the other player needs to say what book it is. It’s not exactly a game for everyone–but those for whom it is for will LOVE it.

board game for book lovers

By the way, the writer of “It was a Dark and Stormy Night” was 19th century Victorian author Edward Bulwer-Lytton who used it for his 1830 novel Paul Clifford (who, incidentally, also coined the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword”. So if your answer was “Snoopy”, you’re about a later albeit granted a more memorable version (suddenly, a shot rang out! the maid screamed!)

There are too many great new gifts to list here, but I can’t stop without listing out my absolute favorite. GoneReading has a new set of metal bookmarks with oh-so-cute charms on them. I got a chance to take a look at one bookmark charm featuring a donut with sprinkles and another featuring an oh-so-cute little hot dog.

hot dog bookmark and chocolate donut bookmark

Next time you have to buy a present for someone, why not buy a copy of a great book, and include one of these incredibly cute bookmarks? They’re not expensive, but they’ll be gifts they treasure for a long, long time.

It’s wonderful to see Brad and the team at GoneReading continue to build their online store to have such creative gifts for readers. And their cause is a vital one.

A few weeks ago, I got a chance to visit the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit in New York’s Times Square. There was something about it that was just amazing. There were fragments parchment from 2000 years ago. Each one contained meticulously written hand-written words.

The people who lived back then knew what a literal treasure the written word was. While today we have copiers that churn out hundreds of pages a second, then for a scribe to copy an entire book took years of laborious work. Even as they saw their own civilization threatened with extinction, they hid their writings in jars and regarded them above any other early possession they had. Because from age to age, the way to destroy a movement or a people was to destroy their books.

Today, like so many of the other luxuries this society takes for granted, we take writing for granted. A lot of us probably haven’t stepped into a public library for years. Whatever writing we consume is off the Web, usually in bite-sized pieces. Our attention spans last about one or two paragraphs before we click off to the next Web site. Our lives become so busy that we hardly have time to watch 30 minutes of TV anymore, much less curl up with a good book.

And yet if you look at all the great minds who have changed the history of the world for the better, they all have one thing in common. They read. They read all kinds of books, from all kinds of people, from all periods of history. They read things they agree with and things they don’t agree with. They challenge their deep-seated ideas and concepts. They learn about new worlds and new ways of thinking.

I often like to say we live in a world where everyone is so busy making a living they forget how to live. In the same way, we live in a world where there are so many words that people forget how to read.

And worse, believe it or not there are still areas of the world that live not too differently than they did 2000 years ago. In many areas of the world literacy is low or non-existent. This fuels the cycle of poverty.

Gone Reading International has an amazing mission where they donate 100% of the after-tax profits of all their gifts for book lovers to fund great non-profits around the world like READ Global and Ethiopia reads, as well as raising money for public libraries here in the United States, at a time when they need help more than ever.

Be sure to visit their Web site and pick up some great gifts. The bookworm in your life will love it!

→ No CommentsTags:

Loukoumi's Celebrity Cookbook with Great Kid's Recipes

April 5th, 2012 · Amazon

Loukoumi was a little lamb who was supposed to go to America with her family but ends up on the wrong plane, the wrong train, and the wrong boat (I feel for you, Loukoumi). As as result, she ends up having all kinds of adventures in Greece, France, Italy and Morocco.

So starts a children’s book series by Nick Katsoris that have become a favorite among preschool kids and celebrities alike.

There have been three Loukoumi books since that first one, where Loukoumi tries to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up, learns the value of doing good deeds, and learns that great gifts don’t necessarily have to cost a lot of money.

With her fifth book, Loukoumi’s Celebrity Cookbook, a ton of A-list and B-list celebrities contribute their favorite recipes from food they ate in their childhood. Just a sample of the foods and celebrities included:

Rachael Ray’s French Toast Cups with Fresh Fruit, Oprah Winfrey’s Corn Fritters, Ellen DeGeneres’ Vegan Sliders, Beyonce’s Easy Guacamole with Corn Chip Scoops, Betty White s Chicken Wings, Miranda Cosgrove’s Spaghetti Tacos, Matt Lauer’s Beanie Weenie Stew, Mario Lopez’s Chicken Enchiladas, Marlo Thomas’ Corn Pudding, and Eli Manning’s Lace Cookies plus recipes from Ernie Anastos, Jennifer Aniston, John Aniston, Alexis Christoforous, Katie Couric, Marcia Cross, Paula Deen, Frank Dicopoulos, Celine Dion, Olympia Dukakis, Mike Emanuel, Gloria Gaynor, Neil Patrick Harris, Florence Henderson, David Henrie, Faith Hill, Carrie Ann Inaba, Melina Kanakaredes, Nicole Kidman, Miranda Lambert, Christian Jules Le Blanc, Jay Leno, Susan Lucci, Evan Lysacek, Bailee Madison, Gilles Marini, Constantine Maroulis, Bridgit Mendler, Nancy O’Dell, Amy Poehler, Al Roker, Hillary Scott, The Scotto Family, Doc Shaw, Sherri Shepherd, Brenda Song, Dylan & Cole Sprouse, George Stephanopoulos, Taylor Swift, Tiffany Thornton, Justin Timberlake, Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon.

Loukoumi s Celebrity Cookbook also invites children ages 4 to 12 to submit their favorite childhood recipe to Loukoumi’s Secret Ingredient Recipe Contest from November 1, 2011, through March 1, 2012, to win a chance to cook that recipe with celebrity chef Cat Cora. The children will be asked to complete the statement: (Recipe Name) is my favorite childhood recipe because… (in 10 words or less).

→ No CommentsTags:

$5 for $10 Starbucks card at Google Offers on April 4, 2012 #starbucks #halfprice

April 3rd, 2012 · Poverty

Heads up! Starting on the morning of 4/4/12, Google Offers will be selling a $10 Starbucks Card for only $5. If you haven’t signed up for Google Offers alerts, be sure to do it now as the offer is only going to be good for Google Offers subscribers (don’t worry, it’s free and you can unsubscribe right after!)

For those of you who haven’t heard about Google Offers, it’s basically Google’s shameless rip-off of Groupon 🙂 But I gotta say that a lot of Google’s offers are pretty good from time to time, and this one is no exception.  Not only do you get a $10 Starbucks card for your $5, but Google Offers will also be donating $3 to the Opportunity Finance Network for the “Create Jobs for USA Fund”. This is an organization that provides loans to community businesses to help create and sustain jobs right here in the US.

What makes organizations like Opportunity Finance Network so special is that it’s not like the government bureaucracy where they take tax money and dole it out to people living in poverty. In some cases, this is a wonderful thing, especially when the recipients are elderly or disabled and truly have difficulty making ends meet. But in some cases this is a terrible thing, when people in poor communities who otherwise are strong and able to work don’t have any opportunities and end up getting dependent on government handouts, which causes a cycle that crushes their self-esteem and motivation (as someone who spent a good 8 months collecting unemployment, believe me when I say I know what I’m talking about).

This organization does something different, they loan money to community development financial institutions with a very strict rule about how the money is spent: it will go to small businesses in poor areas that create new jobs. This starts a cycle of an altogether different kind. It helps people who can work get back to work, producing new goods and services that create new value in the economy and help their local communities. For the workers themselves, being productive and working helps create in them new feelings of self-worth, self-esteem, and motivation. The money they earn is used to support their families. In most cases, this means they in turn spend in the community, helping other businesses thrive. So instead of taking money from a shrinking pool of government handouts, they’re bringing in new tax revenue for our friends in Washington to spend.

So keep an eye on this great deal. It’s not often that the $3 from your $5 goes so long a way. And of course, consider donating directly to the OFN to break the cycle of government dependence and help those in our neediest communities grow and become self-sufficient.

→ 3 CommentsTags:

Help provide stoves for the world's neediest

March 24th, 2012 · Developing Areas

Recently I’ve started shopping for appliances. My refrigerator is on the blink, one of my gas burners on my stove is not working, and my dryer motor is on the fritz. Poor me, right?

Well, before I feel too sorry for myself, I received an email from The Paradigm Project talking about families around the world in the areas they serve, from Kenya to Guatemala to Haiti. In many of these places, families don’t even have a simple stove on which to cook. And so what ends up happening is that they end up chopping down wood with which to cook on an open fire. While most of us love a good campfire from time to time, relying on this ancient method of cooking for daily food can be devastating. It ends up in deforestation, where entire forests are cut down and families may have to walk over 10 miles to find wood.

woman in kenya using a stove from the paradigm project

And worse, something we’ve taken for granted in our world of clean burning fuels and microwave ovens is that families cooking the meals end up breathing in enormous amounts of fumes–according to the World Health Organization it can do the equivalent damage to their lungs as smoking 40 cigarettes a day. At least 1.6 million people die from this. All to feed their families. And tragically, indoor cooking is the number 1 killer of children under the age of 5; more children die from smoke inhalation than from AIDS, malaria, poor water, and malnutrition.

And of course, clear cutting of trees damages the environment in these areas as well. Watersheds are wiped away, erosion ends up washing way critical topsoil, and it becomes impossible to grow crops. And ironically, with fewer trees, the CO2 emissions from the burning fires don’t get converted to oxygen, leading to toxic air.

It all seems like a helpless situation, but The Paradigm Project has a truly innovative idea. It designed a stove that is safe and clean to use indoors. It still uses wood fire, but it makes the wood burn many, many times more efficiently and cleaner.

The cost to help a family in the poorest areas of the world afford this stove? Only $40. A tiny, tiny fraction of the price of a new stove at Best Buy, but one that unlike the stove at Best Buy will save and change lives.

One of the things I find most impressive about this charity is that they don’t just give the stoves away for free–they understand that if you just give someone a handout, they really don’t value it (a lesson I wish more charities and even our government would learn). Instead, your $40 goes towards a package for the family to purchase a stove. The package includes training on how to use the stove, marketing, transportation and distribution of the stove, the subsidy to make the stove affordable and the monitoring to ensure the stove is working properly.

Here is a great video, recently released by The Paradigm Project during the Sundance Film Festival, that tells an amazing story.

As you buy the latest gadgets and appliances for your kitchen, do consider spending just a fraction more to pay for a gift that will change and save lives.

→ No CommentsTags:

AARP Visa Card from Chase on Jeff Gordon's #24

March 18th, 2012 · World Hunger

For those of you who follow NASCAR, you know that Jeff Gordon’s #24 Chevy has been called the Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet, sponsored by AARP. While organizations like Share Our Strength exist to bring awareness to childhood hunger, AARP and Jeff Gordon are bringing awareness to another critical segment of the population that needs our support: hunger among Americans over 50. Since the Drive to End Hunger was launched in 2011, they’ve donated 5.8 million meals and helped collect over $15 million in corporate and individual donations. But the need is still great. Today, far too many older and elderly Americans need help: over 9 million older Americans are threatened by hunger, or 1 in 11.

Starting in today’s race in Bristol, Jeff Gordon had another sponsor on his #24 Chevy: The AARP Visa Card from Chase. They’ll be a sponsor for five NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races in total: today’s, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Richmond, and Dover. For everyone who signs up for the card, Chase will donate $1 to AARP Foundation for Drive to End Hunger. In addition, three cents from every purchase will be made, up to a total of $2 million.

While Jeff unfortunately didn’t have the best of luck today (he was running in the top 5 but was clipped by teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. and ended up crashing into the Turn 3 wall), you can bet that #24 will be back in racing form in Charlotte on May 27!

 

→ No CommentsTags:

Take Me To Your Weeder

March 15th, 2012 · Conservation, Uncommon Goods

Okay, sorry for the atrocious pun, but as spring approaches, here’s a great gift idea for the gardener in your life.

It’s a Cobrahead Weeder. This simple-looking tool with a comfortable handle, a curved metal arm, and a sharpened steel blade is a gardener’s best friend. It breaks up any kind of soil, and is much more effective than other tools are getting down to weed roots. It’s also useful for edging, precision weeding, digging furrows and planting, harvesting hard-to-reach vegetables, and countless other gardening jobs.

CobraHead LLC’s mission is to help people cultivate their own food. The organization donates tools to community, urban, school and prison gardens, and also proudly support growing programs in Kenya, Haiti and Mexico.

Most of the parts of the Cobrahead Weeder are made using a high percentage of recycled material, and it’s all made in Wisconsin, USA. There isn’t much not to like about this tool.

→ No CommentsTags:

Heartwarming Stories of Kids and Animals

March 12th, 2012 · Amazon, Animal Causes

Animals and the Kids Who Love Them: Extraordinary True Stories of Hope, Healing, and Compassion is a heartwarming collection of stories about a collection of kids and animals. Here are the types of stories you can expect to read:

* Ricochet, the golden retriever who surfs in charity events to raise money for children with disabilities
* Casper, the rabbit who helps a boy sleep through the night in his foster home
* Sparkles, the Dalmatian whose fire-safety lesson saves the lives of a five-year-old and her father
* Snazzy, the black pony who helps a boy learn to talk
* Cocoa puff, the guinea pig who loves hearing children read
* Frankie, the dachshund with “wheel legs” who helps a boy with a leg brace find hope

While so much attention is always placed on the latest advances in science, medicine, and technology, sometimes the most magic cane be found in the most fundamental things.

The authors, Allen and Linda Anderson, founded the Angel Animals Network, and are donating a portion of proceeds from book sales to animal welfare organizations.

→ No CommentsTags:

Angry Birds Helping Endangered Birds

March 9th, 2012 · Conservation

Well, if you were lucky enough to get a cool new iPhone or a cool new Android device like the Kindle Fire or the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, one of your first purchase apps is almost sure to be Angry Birds for iOS or for Android. Astoundingly, it’s been downloaded than 500 million times so far.

The good folks at Rovio are doing very well for themselves, and to their great credit they’re giving back. And fittingly, the charity they’re working with is BirdLife International, an organization which is leading the fight to prevent the extinction of bird species which are being threatened by working with non-government organizations to exchange skills, achievements, and information.

The natural rate of bird extinction throughout history has been one bird per century. In the last thirty years alone, 21 bird species have become extinct. At present, 189 are classified as Critically Endangered. Without immediate action, many will not be here in ten years’ time.

Rovio has set up a Web site at  http://birdlife.angrybirds.com/ with a free holiday-themed version of Angry Birds that you can play in your Web browser and even download to your computer to play offline if you have Google Chrome (there’s an “Apps” feature in Google Chrome . It’s just as fun as the version you know and love on your phone.

angry birds page

Aside from playing and downloading the app for free, you can read up on species of endangered birds and make a donation to BirdLife International.  Kudos to Rovio for using their popular platform to shed light on an important issue that not too many people know about.

→ No CommentsTags:

Beautiful necklace from Satya and Kristen Bell

March 6th, 2012 · Developing Areas

Some of Kristen Bell’s recent on-screen characters have been a little mean or vain, but happily the actress herself is a generous and giving person. She and many of her old Veronica Mars colleagues are involved with the charity organization Invisible Children Inc, an organization intended to create awareness regarding the plight of Northern Ugandans who are caught in the midst of a brutal civil war.

The Satya Jewelry Acholi Tree Peridot Necklace is produced by famed jewelry maker Satya and is a design created with Bell. It’s a hand-cast 925 sterling silver charm plated in 24k gold vermeil, which is stamped with the tree of life, symbolizing deep grounding and faith.

The pendant is accented with a faceted tear-shaped light green peridot stone. An 18-inch gold-plated ball link chain with a spring-ring clasp completes the piece.

While Satya routinely donates a portion of proceeds to children’s causes, in this case 100% of net proceeds will be donated to help Invisible Children’s life-changing programs in Northern Uganda.

→ No CommentsTags:

Pit Bull Picture Book

March 3rd, 2012 · Animal Causes

On sale at Amazon (fulfilled directly from the publisher) is this great Pit Bull Picture Book.

Pit Bulls are among the most misunderstood dog breeds. They’ve gotten a reputation for being aggressive and dangerous. But the truth is, a dog is just a reflection of the human who owns it. If a human “pack leader” is neglectful or ignorant or just plain cruel, that can cause any dog of any breed to develop antisocial behavior. Sadly, there are humans in the world who do breed these dogs for fighting or for attack. It’s a shame we can’t lock up those humans as quickly as we lock up the dogs.

With proper guidance, pit bulls can also be among the sweetest, calmest, most balanced dogs in the world. This book does a great job of showing various pit bull breeds showing their wonderful personalities. It has 82 portraits and stories of pit bulls, including celebrity dogs like Wallace the Pit Bull (the kind of canine frisbee), Phillies second baseman Chase Utley’s rescued pit bull Jack, and even 10 rehabilitated Michael Vick dogs.

10% of proceeds from sales of the book will be donated to animal rescue, with emphasis on pit bull rescue and advocacy groups.

→ No CommentsTags: