That’ll teach me to leave town
Apologies for the radio silence; I was in Florida on a family matter and haven’t had much of a chance to respond to various emails. Let’s just say that the phrase “stealth cat pee” figured heavily into my weekend schedule. Fookin’ bastards.
Anyway: Huge thanks to Donors Choose for all the gift certificates that seem to have gone out to citizens of the Tomato Nation. Not sure what to spend them on? Look for smaller projects, and projects that are set to expire soon. One donor told me that, in the letter he received from one teacher, she said she’d just about given up on getting funding, so surprising a classroom that filed a project months ago is a nice idea.
But really, you should put them towards whatever you’d like. You’ve earned it.
For those of you either waiting for the prize list or waiting for instructions on sending prizes, I apologize for the delay; everything has to get sorted in a certain order or I’ll lose the last tattered shreds of my mind. Hang in there.
Also: RIP Norman Mailer. On occasion, I found myself lumping him in with Liz Taylor, in that “why do we still care about this person” category of American royalty where the origin of their fame has been reduced to two or three strokes of magic marker. But The Executioner’s Song is an amazing book; if all you know about Mailer is that he was fighty, check it out.
Tags: books contests feline fun times
Hey Sars,
hope everything’s ok with the fam.
I like that there is a search function on donorschoose for projects that need less than $100 or $100-? to be completely funded. I looked for a project I could finish or almost finish. It would suck to not receive funding because you missed completion by $75. Ugh.
Here’s a project set to expire TODAY that only needs $335– use your gift certificates to get it done! Help teach kids in NC about Earth Sciences. Thanks Sars, DonorChoose, and their mystery underwriter.
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=87478
Yay Donors Choose!
I used my certificate to finish two projects and left about $30 on a third. I was trying to pick projects that were nearly finished and soon to expire but there weren’t any of those, probably thanks toTN readers, so had to settle for one or the other.
I used my gift certificate to finish off funding for a project – 78.00. I’m now trying to figure how HOW (since the website won’t let me) use the last $22. I think tomorrow I’ll call them to find out what is up.
@Cij, I split up my gift certificate. I don’t remember exactly where it is on the page, but you have to select to partially fund the project first and then you can use funds from your gift certificate. The path seemed a little odd when I did it, but I got my money through. I was able to finish funding for a project and toss $10 into another one. So much fun!
Thanks to whoever gave that gift certificate – that was even more awesome to add to the tally. And thanks to Ig for the link; that’s a cool project. I hope others finish it off. I wish DC showed about-to-expire projects on the home page, or had a seach-by-expiry-date function – just a thought for next time.
Hope everyone in your family’s well, Sars. And please do explain “stealth cat pee” – that one isn’t as vividly self-evident as “startle poo”.
I finished off a project and gave the rest directly back to DC for operations costs, since I didn’t give any towards that last time.
The gift certificate was such a cool surprise — I was able to completely fund one project, finish off a second, and drop the remaining buck-12 into the DC operations coffers!
I got so excited over the gift cert that I attracted a coworker in my office and we chose a project here in Austin that had a small project that I could fund myself with the $100 plus $20 of my own money. I think my coworker was even more excited than I was….we both can’t wait to hear about how the kids like their math games.
My theory on “stealth cat pee” is the way that cats, when angry that you have left, do a little olfactory redecorating in places that you can’t quite find.
Of the many aspects of feline companionship, good and bad, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, worse than Stealth Cat Pee. Stealth Cat Pee will tax the very fabric of your sanity and I do not envy your weekend. Soooo sorry.
To finish a partially-used gift certificate you have to click to fund the project with “philanthropy dollars,” which is how your remaining balance is saved. It’s the same as funding a project with cash — you enter the amount you want to give, and when selecting a payment method, choose “philanthropy dollars” instead of a credit card or what have you. If you don’t remember exactly how much is left on your cert you can enter, like, $5, it will tell you how much of your balance is left when you submit, and then you can go back and edit the amount you entered accordingly.
I just wanted to thank you for making me aware of Donors Choose. I never would have known about it without your contest. I’ve managed to get a few small grants for the greyhound adoption group I work with (obviously not DC projects!) and I know how it feels when that money shows up.
Yes, I found a great project in my home city that had been partially-funded for a small amount, and only needed another $112 to finish. So now I bought some first-graders some non-fiction guided reading books! Hooray for DonorsChoose!
Thanks for all the help everyone- I hppily spent my philanthropy credits this morning!
The DC gift certificate was awesome! It helped buy a couple more Norton Readers for a school in western Kentucky that is offering AP English for the first time. Yay for Donors Choice!
That was so cool! I was excited to receive the gift certificate and had fun looking for something to choose. (I went with board games for rainy days…how much Heads Up/7 Up can you play on those days?)
http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=99972&zone=0
Many thanks to Sars and Donors Choose!
I don’t know exactly how these DC gift certificates came to be, but that was so much fun! I got to get one class a boom box and finished up a proposal for globes for another class. So thanks to the magical donor who provided the actual money that I got to spend. It was good for the kids, and it’s helped make contributing to DC an addictive experience for me.
Is anyone else having a hard time getting the Donorschoose search engine to work? It keeps telling me there are no results (even when I search so broadly I know that’s not true) or giving me an error.
Just finished spending mine. I paid the remaining 76 dollars on a project that will give kids a chance to podcast their stories on the internet, which awesome!!! And I spend the remaining on a project built to get kids to walk more during recess. The gift certificate was a welcome surprise, I have to say. Donors Choose made my day with that one….
The project I originally gave to expired before it was fully funded (how awful), so I wound up redirecting the philanthropy credits to complete 2 other projects. I ran out of gift certificate before the second one could be funded, so I wound up topping it up so it wouldn’t expire needing $20. It’s great to know we’re helping kids who need it.