When I worked, and had a (reasonably large) salary, and only one child, and money spare at the end of the month, I always donated to charity straight from my pay packet. Now I don’t work, and although we donate goods to the charity shops, and buy stuff from them, it’s very rare that I actually give money. (Which is mainly because I don’t actually have money right now. It’s a bit of a drawback to the whole not working, staying at home, educating the children thing.) I’ve been wanting to change that, and do my bit, as it were, and I’d just about decided I was going to sign up to do a Santa run for EACH hospices, when along came the OxfamUnwrapped carnival as well.
Which got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be absolutely fantastic to *actually* build a library?
Right at the moment I can’t do much of the practical stuff for charities, but I would just love to fund a library. They fit with my vision of education far better than schools do, and I’d love to be able to think of children somewhere out in some other part of the world reading books they wouldn’t have had access to if it wasn’t for me.
So cool.
And then my fairy godmother popped up. (That would be the Appliances Online fairygodmother, and I think his name is actually Ben 😉 )
You see, I’d read and commented on Josie’s post about her cooker and Ben came over to give me a gift from Appliances Online as well. I *think* he’d been reading my twitter stream, and he’d certainly been looking round my website, as he offered me a choice, £20 for the Santa Run, or a book from my very own (sadly neglected) bookstore.
Tough choice.
Would you believe I turned down the book?
Instead, I went and had a quick twitter chat with a goat (you should try it some time), and set up a couple of fundraising pages with Virgin Money Giving and now they have their first donation of £10 each in them. Thanks to Appliances Online I’m 10/429 ths of a way towards a library, and I’ve £10 in my Santa Run fund.
It would obviously be utterly fabulous if any of you would like to add to my fundraising, but tbh, that’s not why I’m doing it. I’m doing it to fund a library, and to raise the profile of EACH hospices, who would really appreciate any votes that you can offer in the Natwest Community Fund Voting. (I’m guessing that probably only works if you’re in East Anglia, but hey, worth a go. If you’re not, you can go look at the choices in your area and vote instead!)
So there you go. That’s my blog for good personal challenge – I’m going to run as Santa and build a library.
Phew.:D
ETA – Can’t believe I forgot! Fairy godmothers could still be watching comment threads here 😉
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