International Literacy Day

September 8th has been designated by UNESCO as International Literacy Day. Do you part with an easy start: for every click on the orange box on The Literacy Site, site sponsors make a small donation to support literacy efforts, including First Book in the U.S., and Room to Read in developing countries. All you have to do is click!

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Click for a Cure: The Breast Cancer Site

The Breast Cancer Site is trying to qualify for a matching grant. If clicks on the site in April can fund at least 200 mammograms, Greater Good will contribute an additional $10,000 toward breast cancer research. The Breast Cancer Site is a free click-to-give site, where sponsors donate a small amount of money for each visitor’s daily click on the site. The money raised goes to fund free and low-cost mammograms to women without health insurance.

There is no cost to you: simply visit the site and click on the pink box. Advertisers make a small donation for each click — and this month your clicks do double duty by helping the site reach the additional $10,000 matching goal.

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Thanksgiving - Helping the Hungry

Today’s mitzvah (click below):

Hello after a long absence! I'm hoping to be back in force for Advent I. For now, I’ve been thinking about what an anxious Thanksgiving this will be for many people. Our grocery has the usual donation bins for non-perishables. I’d like to offer a personal challenge: Instead of just putting one item in the bins, how about putting in two instead? Pasta, peanut butter, tuna or other canned meats — most of us can afford a second item, especially if we look for sales and store brands.

I know the temptation is to cut way back on everything. But I keep thinking that there’s always someone else whose finances are tighter than mine — and in a scary economy more than ever, we need to stick together! There are also many small ways to contribute for free, including The Hunger Site buttons on this site.

The Hunger Site is supported by sponsors that make donations based on how many people click the web site’s “Give Free Food” icon each day. No cost to you, no strings. Just a lot of sponsor ads and a chance to join with thousands of others each day whose clicks enable Mercy Corps International and Feeding America to provide food to hungry people. I click every day. It only takes a few seconds — and then you can get back to baking my favorite pie.

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Help The Breast Cancer Site Earn a $10K Matching Grant

The Breast Cancer Site is trying to reach 8 million clicks for June. If they reach this goal, one of their sponsors will donate an extra $10,000 for the site’s efforts to provide fee and low-cost mammograms to women without health insurance.

There is no cost to you: simply visit the site and click on the pink box. Advertisers make a small donation for each click — and this month your clicks do double duty by helping the site reach the additional $10,000 matching goal.

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Simple Sunday: Ocean-Friendly

I’ve been blogging about Earth Day all week, without a peep about the ocean! Well that needs to change. Oceana is a fairly new nonprofit that combines public policy advocacy, science and economics, legal action, grassroots mobilization, and public education. They do good work, and you can help with a free click-to-give over on Care2’s Ocean site. How simple is that?

Today’s mitzvah: Visit Care 2’s Race for the Oceans and click the yellow box under the dolphin. Sponsors will make a small donation to Oceana, at no cost to you. To learn more about their cool work, visit their web site at Oceana.org.

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Simple Sunday: Turn This Puppet from Hungry to Happy

I’m nothing if not a sucker for a cute image. Visit The Pajacyk (Wooden Puppet) Campaign, a Polish anti-hunger site, and you’ll be greeted by a sad-faced wooden puppet. But — click on the green circle on the puppet’s tummy and see him turn from sad to happy! You’ll also be helping to provide meals to hungry schoolchildren in more than 100 Polish schools. Sponsors agree to make a small donation for each visitor who clicks the puppet’s belly button, at no cost to you.

Today’s mitzvah: Click to give and put a smile on Pajacyk’s face and some food in a schoolchild’s tummy.

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Simple Sunday: A Final Flourish for Animal Week

Animal Week has been lots of fun — one more chance to show a picture of our friend Jazzy, and I’ve met a terrific new group of blog readers, reaching all the way to Australia. To close out the week, here’s a Simple Sunday mitzvah: visit Care2’s Pets in Need page. Sponsors will match each click on the green Click to Help button with a small donation to the Humane Society of the United States’ Rural Area Veterinary Service programs, including free and low-cost veterinary examinations and vaccinations for pets whose humans are in financial need. Everybody wins in this arrangement.

Today’s mitzvah: Click-to-give on Care2’s Pets in Need page to support the Human Society’s RVAS program, at no cost to you. Jazzy says thank you!

Adopt a Manatee for Valentine's Day

Keeping with the theme of Animal Week (and thinking ahead), Save the Manatee suggests, “Adopt a manatee for Valentine’s day and win a few hearts!” A $25 contribution garners a photo of your manatee, the manatee’s biography, an adoption certificate, a membership handbook, and quarterly newsletter for a year with updated reports on your adoptee. For $35, they’ll throw in the above and a manatee stuffed animal that looks very cute. (Not as cute as Jazzy, of course, but then who is?) This is a gift that keeps giving, as contributions fund efforts to protect this endangered species in Florida.

Today’s mitzvah: Consider giving your Valentine a manatee adoptee. Looking for something faster and cheaper to help our friends in the sea? Click on Care2’s Race for the Oceans for a sponsor-generated contribution to the nonprofit group Oceana’s ocean protection programs.

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Say Hello to Jazzy

As promised, heeeeere’s Jazzy! This adorable young lady, who inspired Daily Mitzvah’s Animal Week, lives with two of my favorite family members. But Jazzy was not always so happy. As one of her humans told me, shelter workers “found Jazzy and her brother hiding under a bush one winter day. When we brought her home, she had a severe case of worms, and Parvo, and had to be quarantined until she got better.” While Jazzy is happy and healthy now, she still has to follow a special diet.

It’s easy to help people who help animals like Jazzy, even in the midst of our very busy lives. Shopping online this week? By using a portal like Nonprofit Shopping Mall to visit favorite stores (Amazon, Target, Macy's, Office Depot, and many more), a portion of your purchase is donated to a nonprofit you designate, with choices including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and the Humane Society of the United States. Or try the shops that link through iGive, which allows you to keep track of donations and even provides receipts for taxes. Pressed for time (or cash)? For every click on the Animal Rescue Site, sponsors will make a small donation to Cleveland Amory’s Fund for Animals, Petfinder.com (a group that works with pets during natural disasters), and the North Shore Animal League.

Today’s mitzvah: Wave hi to Jazzy, and pop over to the Animal Rescue Site for a free click-to-give.

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Monkeys!

OK, technically that should be “primates” or chimpanzees. But it was just too much fun typing “Monkeys!”

As part of the ongoing Animal Week here on the blog, today I want to give a shout out to the Jane Goodall Institute, which since 1977 has focused on education, conservation and development, and wildlife research, as well as its best-known projects, the Chimpanzee Sanctuaries in various parts of Africa. As our friends at Care2 note, “from fostering micro-businesses in Tanzania to educating young people about conservation, the Institute’s programs make the world a better place for people, animals, and the environment.” Even in the midst of a manic Monday (I know, I’m having one, too), you can support the Goodall Institute with a free click on Care2’s Race to Save the Primates. Free to you, the site sponsors make a donation for the Goodall Institute’s chimp protection programs for each click.

Today’s mitzvah: Try a free click to aid in primate protection — and get a pick-me-up with some very cute chimp photos!

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Simple Sunday (in Brazil!)

OK, this is an imaginary trip to Brazil. (It’s still really cold here.) But if we were lucky enough to be in Rio de Janeiro today we would be celebrating Foundation Day. And having a delightful day at the beach, no doubt.

Today’s fast, easy, and simple Sunday mitzvah: Celerate Rio’s Foundation Day holiday with a free-to-you click donation to Pró Menor, a children’s charity that takes advantage of Brazil’s under-utilized military bases and their facilities, as well as volunteer military personnel, to provide homeless street children with meals, education, organized sporting activities, counseling, and vocational training. Just click on the left-hand link marked Doçao Grátis (you’ll know it worked when the resulting page returns an image of stacked coins). The site’s sponsors make a contribution to Pró Menor to for every click (up to one per person per day).

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Happy Winnie-the-Pooh Day!

You can’t stay in your corner of the forest, waiting for others to come to you; you have to go to them sometimes.

Today is Winnie-the-Pooh Day, to commemorate A.A. Milne’s birthday. So a hats-off to Edward Bear, more fondly known as Winnie the Pooh. Allegedly a “Bear of very little brain,” we know better and can spot a Taoist Master when we see one :-)

Today’s mitzvah: Help enhance a child’s sense of wonder through books, with a free click-to-donate at The Literacy Site. And reward yourself with some Poo-ish wisdom from the Thousand Acre Wood.

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Simple Sundays: Free Clicks Help to Sponsor Children

In a creative spin on “click to donate,” Care2 has pledged to sponsor 14 children through Children International. Each time you click on the web site button (up to once per day per person), advertisers make a small contribution, which Care2 then sends to Children International each month to sponsor Ana Gabriela, Jorge, and Adriana (Ecuador); David and Yeyni (Guatemala); Ariane, Bryan, and Arnold (Philippines); Saony, Jose, and Carlos David (Dominican Republic); and Sirleys, Yelize, and Carlos (Colombia). Sponsorship funds are customized for the individual child’s needs and may include medical and dental care, educational support, clothing, nutritional aid, and family assistance.

Today’s mitzvah: Take a few seconds to click Care2’s children site and help support the kids above, at no cost to you!

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Saturday Spotlight: Teen Builds Cambodian School

A shout-out to the always inspirational DarynKagan.com web site for this story. Rachel Rosenfeld of Harrison, NY, now 17, read a newspaper article last year about impoverished children in the Cambodian province of Srah Khvav, who lacked access to education. Yet unlike most newspaper readers who perhaps send kind thoughts and then move on, Rosenfeld (even though ill herself at the time) decided to do something to help Srah Khvav’s children: raise money to build a new school in the province. Rosenfeld sent countless fundraising letters, sold t-shirts, and engaged in basic grassroots fundraising that raised $52,000. She also gained the notice of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, which contributed an additional $23,000. On December 26th (my birthday!) Ms. Rosenfeld and her family visited Cambodia to cut the ribbon opening Srah Khvav’s R.S. Rosenfeld School, a primary school for 300 children that also includes five computers and internet access. MSNBC ran a story here — this really is my favorite news story of the month.

Today’s mitzvah: Most of us may not have Ms. Rosenfeld’s energy, but we can still help improve children’s access to education. At no cost: click on Greater Good’s The Literacy Site, whose sponsors will make a contribution benefiting First Book in the U.S. and Room to Read internationally. For $5 or more: consider a tax-deductible contribution to Room to Read, which helps to build schools, provide scholarships, and publish books in local languages for children in developing countries.

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Simple Sundays: Click for the Gift of Children’s Health

In the midst of gift buying and holiday hurrying, The Child Health Site offers a quick, easy, and free way to give the gift of health to children around the world. Every time you click on the site’s blue button (once per day per person), the site’s sponsors make a small donation to charity partners. Together these individual clicks add up to help children each day by:

• funding Vitamin A supplementation, to help prevent 400,000 cases of childhood blindness each year
• providing oral re-hydration formula to children with severe dehydration, a major cause of death for children under five worldwide
• making a prosthesis for child amputees, many of whom have have lost a foot or leg to landmines
• restoring lost eyesight through simple surgeries that reverse blindness caused by cataracts and trachoma
• testing pregnant mothers for HIV as a step toward preventing mother-to-child transmission of the AIDS virus

Today’ mitzvah: Click on The Child Health Site to give a gift of health to a child this holiday season

Simple Sundays: “Click to Donate” Ideas by Email

Many of us have a favorite “click to donate” site, like Free Rice, yet it often seems there are just too many of these sites to keep up with. A simply designed web site, Daily Free Donation, offers a streamlined solution: submit your email address and every two days you will receive a message featuring a random “click to donate” link. These web sites follow the familiar model: a sponsor or sponsors agree to make a contribution for every click, at no cost to you or me. A neat added feature: many of the Daily Free Donation sites are located in countries other than the U.S. — and might otherwise be unknown to English-only speakers — supporting local food, health, and education programs. (Not sure where to click on a page in an unfamiliar language? Look for the left sidebar with instructions and an arrow to direct you to the appropriate button.)

Today’s mitzvah: Consider signing up for an every-other-day email message — and “click to donate”!

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The Rice Game

How’s your vocabulary? Our favorite person in North Carolina and I both recently discovered a beautifully designed site called Free Rice that combines an addictive word game with donations to the United Nations World Food Program (UNWFP).

I love this one. The Free Rice home page lists a word and four possible definitions. Choose the correct definition, and the site’s sponsors donate 20 grains of rice to the UNWFP. One can play all day — I’m not kidding about the addictive element! How much impact does 20 grains of rice/word really have? Look at the site totals: more than 372 million grains of rice yesterday — and counting.

Today’s mitzvah: Test your vocabulary (and help out a good cause) at the Free Rice web site.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Whether you observe Thanksgiving more as as a cook or a consumer, in a big group, a small group, or on your own: here's a quick mitzvah for any schedule. The Hunger Site is supported by sponsors that make donations based on how many people click the web site’s “Give Free Food” icon each day. No cost to you, no strings. Just a lot of sponsor ads and a chance to join with thousands of others each day whose clicks enable Mercy Corps International and America’s Second Harvest to provide food to hungry people. I click every day. It only takes a few seconds — plus we all need the exercise to squeeze in more pie.

Today’s mitzvah (click below):

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