Awesome ’08
The contest approacheth; we kick off October 1.
If you would like to donate a prize, please email me at bunting at tomatonation dot com.
If you would like to suggest a project for the challenge, ditto (don’t forget the URL).
And if you know any nifty ways to raise dough that don’t involve you guys going without milk or gas for a week, please share them in the comments — let’s get our Hints From Tomatoise on in here.
The economy is in miserable shape, and you may not feel like you can give enough money to make a difference, but that just isn’t true. It is not the giant donations of the few, but the thoughtful contributions of the many that make the contest work each year. Each of you doing what you can adds up to all of us, together, doing great things.
The United States of Awesome knows no borders, people.
Questions? Suggestions? Want to donate Etsy-store proceeds to the contest? Email or post.
Tags: contests Donors Choose Etsy
Hurray! I love contest time. With Hurricane Ike’s impact in mind, I’d like to suggest a few Houston-based projects:
http://tinyurl.com/3qhqds
http://tinyurl.com/45trmq
http://tinyurl.com/4awk87
http://tinyurl.com/45p97v
http://tinyurl.com/4xyhk7
Holy cow, it’s been a year already?
Are they registered with GoodSearch.com? That’s a pretty easy way for the budget-conscious to contribute.
Can I just be silly here, and say “Tomatoise” looks like Tortoise? And I love that. I’m a dork.
I love this contest. How are we every going to top last year? With money raised OR with the Angela Chase/Tomato Costume Dance??
I took German, but that looks French. Is that pronounced “Toe-ma-teese” or “Toe-ma-twa”?
Suggestion for raising money: If you have clutter around your home–CDs, books, DVDs, clothes, etc., that you no longer want or need–sell a couple things on e-bay. Surefire way to earn $10 for needy schools.
With Hurricane Gustav in mind, I would like to suggest any projects in southern Louisiana. You can do a search with Baton Rouge (or Houma or Thibodaux or Lafayette…) as your criteria and pull up many such schools. This is the first full week that most children have been back in school since the storm and at least one school in Baton Rouge is not going to be able to re-open at all.
School budget cuts here in San Diego have been ridiculous this year. At my son’s school we lost our P.E. teacher and the PTA is paying salaries for the librarian and nurse assistant because the district will not. Additionally, all of the parents are asked to donate a ream of copier paper because there’s so little money in the budget. So, I’m putting in a plug for San Diego schools.
I’ll be doing the same thing this year as last… Instead of buying wrapping paper from my son’s school fundraiser, I’ll be donating the money I’d have spent on that to Donor’s Choose and I’m asking my relatives to do the same.
Wanting to build on what Stephanie above posted, Houston ISD isn’t the only district in south Texas affected by Ike. The “Houston” area is almost 100 miles across and includes Galveston, League City, Texas City, and Galveston, among others. Be sure to cast a wide net.
I hope that we can also donate projects that help autistic/special needs children.
A fundraising idea a friend of mine had for her church group (but didn’t end up doing) was to get donations of people’s unused, miscellaneous holiday cards, packaging them up in variety packs, and selling them. It is a good way to get rid of your leftover cards if you don’t plan on sending repeats, recycle, and then have a fun way to purchase a new selection of cards for the holidays at a low cost and for a good cause. And little to no cost to the group doing the fundraising.
I’m thinking of floating the idea by my family and friends to see how many cards we could gather, but it isn’t the same as asking your church or organization, where there is a wider pool of donors. I’m also not sure how I’d go about selling them as someone not currently affiliated with an established group. I love the idea, though, and maybe other TN readers can make it work!
Sending me specific URLs or search-results pages would be a huge help, too. If you have types of projects, or students, or towns that you’re afraid might get overlooked, please do send an email or post the URL here.
To clarify, I’m looking for Donors Choose projects, which you can find here: http://www.donorschoose.org/homepage/main.html
Lots of worthy causes out there, of course, but I’m sticking with this one. Although it would be kind of hilarious to have a bake sale for Fannie Mae.
For The Great Awesome of Aught Eight I would suggest:
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=196899&verify=1670323813&zone=321
And I will be happy to donate a pineapple upside down cake to the Fannie Mae bake sale.
Also to keep in mind Missouri generally ranks fairly low in education rankings and got hit by a major flood this year:
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?zone=223&id=207668
This one gets my vote: http://xurl.jp/36c.html
Here are some that looked fun to me
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=193743&zone=0
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=195538&zone=0
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=202390&zone=0
Wow, is it that time of year already?
Amie, that’s a really cool idea. If anyone can think of a way to make it work over the internet, I’m in as a buyer and a donor!
As a lifelong bookworm, I like these.
http://tinyurl.com/5yt446
http://tinyurl.com/47tvph
http://tinyurl.com/46vgm2
http://tinyurl.com/447x7r
http://tinyurl.com/4qqssy
Bard in the Hood: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=210976
A Young People’s History of the U.S.:
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=192698&zone=402
Books, books and more books: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=195803&verify=-1597530595&zone=113
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=178746&zone=0
Challenges of a different type: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=160943&zone=0
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=171937&zone=0
@Molly
I was thinking of arranging for a holiday card drive type thing over the internets, and then doing the reselling online, too, but I’m afraid the added cost of shipping might defeat the purpose and discourage people, especially when that extra buck could just go directly to Donors Choose. And it would probably be pretty impossible to make it all work in time to have all the proceeds go to Sars challenge.
It is something to ponder, and maybe some of us can rally to do it for next year… It would be a fun project!
this elementary school is right around the corner from my house. the kids are so cute!
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=197811&verify=1707626997&zone=313
my friend teaches at this school. they have a 42% poverty level in small town South Carolina. and, these projects look cool!
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=183155&verify=1719628267&zone=303
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=197828&verify=1707627014&zone=303
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=197817&verify=1707627003&zone=303
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=205435&verify=-1261800515&zone=303
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=205283&verify=-197384411&zone=113
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=190530&zone=113
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=205507&zone=113
I’m a big fan of getting current event coverage into schools, especially in times like these. Anything to help students in high poverty areas better understand what’s going on around them, and that they can have an impact gets my vote. Some suggestions:
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=207496&zone=0
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=191657&zone=0
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=200021&zone=0
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=203725&zone=0
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=181463&zone=0
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=128416&zone=0
I’d love to support Science in Florida.
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/search.html?page=1&zone=312&subject4=6
Ooh, this is at my husband’s high school.
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=190312&verify=-1993178299&zone=312
I like these tech-related ones:
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?zone=213&id=179788
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?zone=213&id=194722
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?zone=204&id=197764
Could there be some projects that are due to expire right after the challenge? When I’ve had a few extra bucks to give, I always search for the ones that are close to expiring and just need that last little bit to be funded.
I vote for this one because I was a percussion major in college:
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=198145&zone=0
and this one because it’s in the city where I live:
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=204947&verify=867031509&zone=0
Some more from Louisiana:
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=185556&zone=322
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=186331&zone=322
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=188014&zone=322
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=208810&zone=322
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=186750&zone=322
The Clayton County, Georgia, school system just lost its accreditation (not due to the teachers or principals, but because of the infighting among and ethical lapses of the school board members – basically, a few folks managed to screw over the whole county). They’re being reevaluated in a year, and I bet being able to show quality education and successful students to the accrediting agency could only help their case….
http://tinyurl.com/4b93j3
and this one:
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=206440&zone=0
Sex Ed is so important!
Ooh, I second Nikita’s suggestion of the People’s History of the United States. That is a project I would really like to help fund.
One of my good friends from high school is working in Memphis with Teach for America and I got really excited when he said he put up a project on DC because I couldn’t wait to suggest it for this :D
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=203181
This one is at my cousin’s school: http://tinyurl.com/4jlm69 and I’d love to fund it because the kids there are the cutest little buggers EVER.
And while of course I’d like to fund things close to home, I am not going to quibble over where these are – anything that wants to be library-related is on my list of projects we should nail for these kids. That said, I suggest anything from this list: http://tinyurl.com/3tb37s (Yes, I am a lifelong library nerd. And more kids need to be!)
My wife has several proposals listed…..She is like such a big kid when her proposals are funded! She would be so happy if you could include these in your challenge! The first 2 will be funded 50% by Duke Energy if someone funds the other half:
http://tinyurl.com/4jrl4u ($71.00 left)
http://tinyurl.com/4mw4bw (98.00)
http://tinyurl.com/4ysgk4
http://tinyurl.com/4pmg6x (157.00 left)
Oh you guys, I got a thank-you package last night. It was delayed for the photos, and the camera failed, so no pics of the kids in this one, and thus the lateness.
But those thank-you notes made me bawl like a calf. I bought books, and they took them home & read them straight through, and then read them again, and then had thier families read them. The teacher ended up buying the sequel because the kids were so caught up in the story.
I am stunned & thrilled & teary-eyed at the impact a few bucks made. I’m gonna be high on this for days & days…
Thanks, Sars, for introducing us to this wonderful way to give. *sniffle*
Hi, just wondering if there is a spring contest for donorschoose.org? If so, when should I start looking for information? Thanks!