A great cause from Anthony:

Hear the World, a global initiative by hearing system manufacturer Phonak, has joined forces with Global Explorers, a not-for-profit educational travel organization, to offer the first-ever Hear the World Expedition to the Peruvian Amazon. The expedition will integrate students of mixed hearing abilities to raise awareness about hearing as a fundamental part of life that many take for granted. Students with and without hearing loss will form an unlikely team that will work together and learn from one another while shattering expectations and learning to use adversity to their advantage. Hear the World Expeditions create a unique platform where groups of students explore science, culture, leadership and service while at the same time raising awareness about the importance of hearing.

Ten students will participate in the trip from July 8-17, 2010 and we are looking for donations to helps support the student’s fundraising efforts. Donations can be made via the Hear the World cause page at http://apps.facebook.com/causes/186656?fb_page_id=71459517323&m=63f2250d&owner_id=51350384. All donations made to the page until April 30^th will be divided evenly among participating students to cover trip costs.

Please consider donating to this great cause, or encouraging your readers to donate. More info about the trip can be found here:http://www.globalexplorers.org/programs/destinations/hear_the_world_expeditions/.

DonorsChoose sent me a link to photos from the classroom we sponsored. We bought headsets for use in their science class and it looks like they’re having a blast using them, yay! Check it out here.

We got some photos and a thank you note from the Build a Library Project we funded a few months back. Always nice to get these, yay!

 http://www.donorschoose.org/photos/199808

Hi folks, the Bishop Museum will be offering a special promotion from February 5th to the 12th. For each can of food you donate you get $1 off the price of admission. The limit is $3, but hey, why not bring even more cans for this great cause. It’s in support of the Hawaii Food Bank’s Annual Food Drive. This special applies to both regular and kama’aina rates for both adults and children. We’ve got an annual membership to the museum but what better way to help a good cause and have friends join you at the museum for a discounted admission rate!

To get more info from the Bishop Museum, call 847-3511. 

After participating in the 2008 Blogger’s Challenge with DonorsChoose.org, I received a $25 donation card. I’ve decided to donate it to this project. From the project page:

My students need materials for Lego education projects. Materials include items such as Legos and Lego education supplies. These materials are essential to differentiating learning, to meet the varied needs of my kinesthetic learners. In addition, my students love to play with Legos and will be excited to use them as a learning tool.

I’m donating $25 right now, please help this cause if you can. Thanks and Happy New Year!

Brian

Yay! Yesterday (Oct. 30th), the “Build Our Library, Build Their Brains!” project was fully funded! This is one our Skip a Lunch readers donated to (among others). Ms. Branch wrote us a thank you note as follows:

Dear Brian, 

Thank you so much for your generous donation! My students have been working very hard this year to become better readers, and they will be thrilled to receive new books. I know this will increase their motivation to read, both in class and at home. The books will provide students with more opportunities to read different books and not be stuck on the same books over and over again. Support like yours helps our school be able to meet the needs of a very diverse population.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2008 Blogger Challenge, what a great success story! There are many many more projects that need funding, so don’t stop now! Go find a project that you believe in either because of the subject, the proposal, or the location. Find more here. Thanks!

Thanks Natalie for this wonderful, and very different idea.

It turns out that Jose Canay Vi (photo bottom right) is the last man in the world that knows how to make the traditional Mayan hand-woven straw hats shown to the right. Jose is 84 with ailing health and is losing his vision. The Limitless Horizons Ixil organization is trying to raise funds to teach others his craft before its lost forever. They’ve launched the Hat Rescue Project and they hope to raise enough to teach a class of 30 people his craft.

Very nifty idea, and the Limitless Horizons Ixil organization has many other ways you can help the Ixil region in northern Guatemala where 80% live in poverty on income less than $2/day … much of this is attributed to the 36 year civil war from 1960 till 1996.

Photos were provided by, and used with permission of Limitless Horizons Ixil

Another update on the DonorsChoose.org 2008 Blogger Challenge:

We managed to fully fund a project, yay!! We bought Frindle for a classroom and the teacher sent the thank you note to me below (the “We Need Frindle” project is one that I donated a small amount to). Here’s the project page. Basically:

My students need 1 teacher’s copy of “Frindle”, by Andrew Clements, along with 2 audio book copies and 30 paperback copies. The cost of this proposal is $288, which includes shipping for any materials requested and fulfillment.

Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know how we’re doing and that indeed, we’re helping classrooms make ends meet. Hopefully we’ll get more photos from the students in that classroom, those always make me happy!

See the thank you note below:

Thanks to everyone for their donations to the 2008 DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge (read more about it in this post). The money raised helps teachers make ends meet in our public schools. In the general blog category we’re currently 13th place while we’re currently 9th place in the Topical/Local blogs category. We’ve raised $224 dollars! Yay!

For those who’ve donated, thank you very much. Be sure to save a receipt for your tax write-off! To everyone else, there’s still time to donate! Just click here and choose one of the projects I’ve selected. Couldn’t be easier! Thanks again. B.