POINTS EARNED
Ute's Charitable Life
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HOME: Clare Coast, Ireland
ROCK PAPER OR SCISSORS: Rock
I stumbled upon Crowdrise through the 2009 Maasai Marathon campaign. It was incredibly inspiring to see how a small group of people could, well, rise a crowd and make a big difference through a multitude of small donations. It's been great to see Crowdrise get off the ground and I believe it will be as much about grassroots fundraising as about raising awareness for the many great charities out there that are trying to make this world a better place.
Personally, I have been involved with nature conservation and environmental causes in one way or another since my early teens, from anti-nuclear protests to eco street theater, from replanting forests for the German Bird Conservancy to saving a mountain in Ireland from a destructive tourism development, from being a shareholder and worker in an organic foodshop in my student days to growing and rearing a good bit of our own food on our smallholding in the West of Ireland. And I have been lucky enough to be able to tailor my 'bread labour' around these themes too.
The author, journalist and activist Michael Pollan coined the phrase "The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world.", as the way we produce and distribute food has a profound impact on the environment, landscapes, natural resources, wildlife, and the Earth's climate. Since I care about all the above, sustainable agriculture has become 'my thing' and I have been a steadfast supporter and advocate of organic farming all my adult life. I firmly believe it's the only way forward in the long run, both in developed and developing countries.
The charity I'd like to help raise funds for can't be featured here (yet) as it's in Ireland. It's the Irish Seedsavers Association (irishseedsavers.ie), an organisation involved in protecting, conserving & utilising Irish plant genetic resources, promoting agricultural biodiversity for food security, and engaging in research and education. I've been on the board of the association for seven years but it's the great people on the site who do all the work and deserve all the help they can get.
So in the meantime I'll join in the fun here and see if there's anything I can do.
WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR ME:
You shouldn't. Vote for the people who support 'Just Food', for my fellow countryman Glen Hansard, or for Parashi, Sunte and Samson, the 3 Maasai guys I've never met but have grown very fond of.
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Happy February, Crowdrise friend! Thank you for your support, through your donations, votes, advocacy and friendliness. You probably know all about the amazing promos that CR runs. Right now, I think the most awesome is the chance to win an iPad 2. Every time you donate $26, you are entered to win.
Your $26 donation to a Reader to Reader project would help us send 2 boxes full of books to an under-resourced library here in the states, or support special education in the DR, or get a women's school built in Nigeria, or get books to families in transition... there are plenty of choices and who knows, you might get lucky!
Happy reading,
Kat
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A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint.... What I began by reading, I must finish by acting. ~Henry David Thoreau