Blogathon 2006: Now accepting pledges!
Category: Blogathon...
Posted Sunday, July 02, 2006 at 10:00 PM [GMT-6]

We're just a day late, but the Blogathon website is now configured to accept pledges. I hope you'll consider making a pledge to the Gazette's Blogathon efforts on behalf of Midland Fair Havens.

If you already know that you want to make a pledge, you can skip the rest of this post and click on the following link to jump to the pledge page of the Blogathon website:

If Blogathon and/or Midland Fair Havens are unfamiliar to you, please allow me to explain why I'm asking for your financial support.

Blogathon is simply an event where bloggers agree to post entries on a regular basis -- at least every half hour -- for 24 consecutive hours, beginning at 8:00 a.m. (CDT) on Saturday, July 29 (there's a special Sabbath schedule for Jewish bloggers). We do this thing in order to raise money for the charities of our choosing.

This is the second year for me to participate in Blogathon, and the second year to sponsor Midland Fair Havens (MFH). MFH is a local, independent organization serving west Texas, and it has a simple but critical mission: ...to equip single mothers and their children for self-sufficient living by addressing their educational, vocational, spiritual, and emotional needs in residential and non-residential settings. You can read more on its website about the work MFH is doing in our community.

Why choose a local organization, when the Gazette is visited and read by people living literally around the world? That's simple, too. The money we contribute (I'm the first pledger) will not be a staggering sum (unless Bill and Melinda happen by here and are intrigued), but it will be important to MFH. We could raise money for the Red Cross or the Salvation Army, for example...worthwhile organizations, to be sure, but our contributions wouldn't constitute rounding errors for them and their multi-million dollar budgets.

MFH is a good organization. I know the workers; I know the board members; I know the work they do and I've known some of the families they've helped. Rest assured that if you entrust them with your money, it will be stewarded with the highest ethics and for the noblest of purposes.

One last plea. I do this blog thing for fun. I don't have a tip jar or a wish list; I don't run ads; the merchandise I sell via the CafePress store goes mostly to myself to give away as prizes, or to family members who have come to expect cheap gifts for special occasions. The point I'm trying to make is that I try not to get into your wallets except on behalf of others, and then only sparingly. Blogathon is the primary exception, and this is the one time I'll make whatever shameless pitch necessary to persuade you to help out with some very important work.

As an added incentive, let me just remind you that Blogathon at the Gazette will feature a whole series of features that come with the possibility of Fabulous Fire Ant Prizes, and while some of those prizes will be available to all readers, most of them will be reserved for those who make pledges. We're not requiring a minimum pledge, because every little bit helps.

OK, enough of the fine print. Here's the link; you know what to do. Make me proud. ;-)

And then mark your calendar for July 29th. There will be some surprises.

Technorati tag: Blogathon