Anniversary Blog Part 2

Here is part two of my year in review! Hope you enjoy and remember to share it with others!

Year Two:

Wetopia – https://www.facebook.com/WeTopiaOfficial

I am not usually a person who plays games but I do play this one and have for well over a year now because you are playing for good. You create a village by building houses, shops, joy grounds, crops, etc. and in return you get joy points and other items. The joy points can then be donated towards good causes. It is a fun, and addicting, game yet you can justify playing it because you are ultimately helping others!

Pura Vida – http://puravidabracelets.com/

Buy very simple yet very cool bracelets that support many different causes as well as local artisans in Costa Rica. If you buy a bracelet for a certain cause anywhere from $1 to 100% of the proceeds will be donated to that cause.

Being Green – http://thelittlethingsdomatter.blogspot.com/2012/02/being-green-means-happy-environment.html

In this post I focused on ways to help our environment. Check out the link for all the ways I listed however a few are to use reusable bags when shopping (I’m pretty sure I haven’t gotten a bag from a store in over a month!), if you don’t use a reusable water bottle (which you should) at least make sure you recycle the bottle, as I sit here in Starbucks typing this blog I also thought about how many cups they give out and how many end up in the trash and not the recycle bin. All of their cups are recyclable so make sure to recycle them! There are so many ways to be green however if you are new to the concept start with a few, maybe just recycling more, and go from there!

           

The World Needs More Love – http://www.moreloveletters.com/

Hannah Brencher felt that the world needed more love letters so she created a non-profit with the goal to solve that problem. Anyone can join The More Love Letters team and write lover letters for the organization or even request ones for a friend in need. They send out letters to people who may need a little lifting and it takes people like us to help!

Milkshake – http://www.getmilkshake.com/index.php

Learn about different companies and organizations that are giving back and making a difference. You can find them on their website or sign up to get a weekly e-mail.

Bully – http://www.thebullyproject.com/

Bullying is still happening today and although it has been a year since the movie came out there is still a lot that can be done starting with, have you seen the movie? I know I haven’t, so maybe it’s simply watching the movie to increase your knowledge on the situation.

Outnumber Hunger – http://www.outnumberhunger.com/

By purchasing participating General Mills products and then submitting the codes and your zip code you can help give meals to those in need. For every code entered, $0.65 is donated to Feeding America which ends up being 5 meals.

Dawn – www.dawnsaveswildlife.com

Help Dawn save wildlife by simply buying a bottle of Dawn and then entering the code online. They are donating up to $500,000 to the International Bird Rescue and The Marine Mammal Center; $1 for every code entered online.

Odwalla – https://cocacola.promo.eprize.com/odwallapat/

Visit this site after March 20^th to take part in this year’s plant-a-tree program. Last year they had projects that you could vote on and the top 10 projects won $10,000. The projects that you can vote on have to do with our environment and making it greener.

Bing - http://www.bing.com

Join their rewards program and get points for using Bing.com. You can then use your points for different rewards some of them being to donate money to non-profits. I mostly use Bing as my search engine now because of the rewards program!

America Recycles Day – http://thelittlethingsdomatter.blogspot.com/2012/11/america-recycles-day.html

Even though America Recycles Day is in November, we can always recycle and learn about new ways to recycle. Head on over to this blog post for some ideas and organizations that focus on being green.

It looks like this post is much shorter! As I went back and looked at the previous year’s entries I noticed that many of the posts are no longer going on or that it is in celebration of a certain day. I will try and continue doing that this year but will also continue my search for ongoing ways to help others. Hope this post and the last help you to find a cause that you are interested in taking a part in.

Until next week,

Annie

I'm Back! Two Year Anniversary Blog - a little late!

I am back with renewed energy and motivation to once again bring you all a weekly blog on easy ways to help others. I thought I would come back with a big bang and start it off with a recap of the past two year’s entries; I’m doing it in two segments so it is not too long. This recap will only include the entries from the past that are still active today and waiting for you all to take part. I’m hoping with my renewed energy I will gain more viewers which is where I ask you, my loyal readers, to pass this on to your friends and family. I try and keep it light and short, minus this blog, and give you easy ways to help others. I named my blog, The Little Things Do Matter, because they truly do. For each reader that takes part in the week’s entry, that is one more person than before taking part and as you know things add up! So here are the short explanations recapping the last two years. Enjoy and be sure to share!

Year One:

The hunger site - http://www.thehungersite.com

Donate money towards hunger, mammograms, animals, veterans, autism research, child health, literacy, and the rainforest by simply clicking a button every day.

Coke rewards - http://www.mycokerewards.com/

Enter the code on your coke bottle or container the cans come in for points that can be donated to many causes, including schools, the special Olympics, and our troops.

Free rice - http://www.freerice.com

Answer questions on many different subjects and for every question answered right, 10 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program.

Recycled cards - http://www.stjudesranch.org/shop/recycled-card-program/

You can send in your used cards to St. Judes Ranch and they will take them, make them into new cards, and sell them to help raise funds. The children at the ranch help with the card project learning many valuable skills.

Box tops for education - http://www.boxtops4education.com/

On the top of many different food and household products are box top labels. They are worth ten cents for each label and can be taken to most schools to help them raise funds.

Free kibble - http://www.freekibble.com/

Answer two questions every day, one about dogs and one about cats. Whether you answer the questions right or wrong, 10 pieces of kibble are donated to shelters all over the United States.

Labels for education - http://www.labelsforeducation.com/

This is very much like box tops however it is labels for education and the schools are given points and not money. The points can be turned into items from a catalog that they have.

Prom dress donation - http://www.donatemydress.org/donate.html

Places are always looking for prom type dresses to be donated and what better time than right before we get into prom season! Donate my dress has compiled a list, by state, of different places that take dresses and then donate them to girls who need them.

Kiva - http://www.kiva.org/

You help entrepreneurs start and/or expand their businesses that usually are not able to. The cool thing about this site is once you are repaid you can either reinvest your money into a new borrower or take your money back. You have the power to be able to help many people.

Good search - www.goodsearch.com

Good search is a search engine like Yahoo and Google yet when you use good search one cent is donated, for every search, to a nonprofit or school of your choice.

Jamie Oliver’s food revolution - http://www.jamieoliver.com/us/foundation/jamies-food-revolution/home

Jamie Oliver has created a mission to help educate people on healthier ways to eat. He focuses on school lunch and you can help him by signing his petition to help bring better and fresher food to schools.

Daily feats - www.dailyfeats.com/

Daily feats allows you to check in the good feats that you do daily, like flossing, drinking orange juice, reading, working out, and so many more. You get points for every feat you enter and can get fun things with your points as well as donate your points to Save the Children, Companions for Heroes, JDRF, and the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

Nike reuse-a-shoe - http://www.nikereuseashoe.com/

Nike takes old shoes that can no longer be worn and makes them into things that can still be used like track surfaces, gym floors, basketball and tennis courts, and even new Nike products. You can drop your shoes off at Nike and Converse stores and can also mail them in if you do not live near a drop off location.

Newman’s own - http://www.newmansown.com/charity/

All of the post tax proceeds from Newman’s own food products go to the foundation which has donated millions of dollars to thousands of charities.

Little acts of kindness

Little acts of kindness are something that can brighten someone’s day and bring a smile to a sad face. Whether it is smiling at someone walking down the street, giving water or food to someone on the streets or bringing holiday cheer to those less fortunate try and go offline every once-in-awhile and bring happiness and cheer to others.

Teracycle - http://www.terracycle.net/en/

Terracycle takes materials that usually cannot be recycled and recycles them into items that can once again be used. The nonprofits, schools, or individuals that are collecting the waste receive $.02 for each item sent in and can either donate the money to charitable causes on the website or can use it for their own nonprofit charity or school.

Roozt - http://www.roozt.com

Roozt promotes socially responsible buying by offering deals from companies that are making a positive impact in their community, environment, with their employees, and humanity as a whole. For every person that joins, they will donate a meal to a person in need.

Better world shopper - http://betterworldshopper.com/

Better world shopper has graded hundreds of companies on five different categories that can help people shop more ethically. The five categories that they judge companies on are human rights, the environment, animal protection, community involvement, and social justice.

Sleeping mats - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiUC0iDQtkA\

You can make sleeping mats for the homeless out of plastic bags so that they can stay out of landfills and continue to be used. The youtube video shows you how to make the yarn for the mats and the mats themselves.

We give books - http://www.wegivebooks.org/

We give books allows you to read children’s books online while donating a book to children who don’t usually have many, if any, books to read. You can pick the campaign that you want to read for and even if you don’t have children it is still fun to read the many books that they have available.

Cards that give back

The holidays are past but you can always think about buying cards that help great causes. There are many different cards that can help other people. The three that I blogged about were Phoenix Children’s Hospital cards, St. Jude’s Ranch, and Cards from Africa. These are three wonderful organizations that are doing a lot with the money they receive.

Locks of love/pantene - http://www.locksoflove.org/donate.html

http://www.pantene.com/en-US/beautiful-lengths-refresh/Pages/default.aspx

Donate your hair to wonderful causes that create wigs for children with cancer (locks of love – 10+ inches) and women with cancer (pantene’s beautiful lengths – 8+ inches).

Music

Music is such an awesome thing and there are so many ways music helps people. There are many songs and CDs that can be purchased that help good causes like broadways Carols for a Cure, Playing for Change, and African Children’s Choir.

Care2 - http://www.care2.com/

Care2 is a site that has the daily clicks to help good causes as well as petitions that you can sign and daily actions that can be done to help others and our environment.

Sevenly - http://sevenly.org/

Sevenly is working on raising capital and awareness to many organizations doing good throughout our world with the help of a weekly shirt. Each week they choose a different organization, make a unique design for that cause and sell clothing with the design for a week and $7 of each shirt sale goes to the organization being recognized.

American Giving Awards

I didn’t get this last week’s blog posted so here it is! I will post later this week with this week’s blog post. In the meantime you should take a few minutes tonight (before midnight EST) and go online to vote for the American Giving Awards (Voting ends tonight). For the second year Chase Community Giving is putting on the American Giving Awards which means that 25 charities have the chance to win part of $2 million. The public’s voting will decide which charities get the money and that is where you come in. Voting is taking place on Facebook and chase.com. If you have a Facebook account you can vote at https://www.facebook.com/ChaseCommunityGiving and if you have a chase card you can also vote online at https://www.chasegiving.com/. If you have both you get two votes! There are five different causes they focus on and five charities in each cause. Take a look at the charities and vote for the one you want to see get a share of $2 million. The most important thing is that you vote in the next 4½ hours! Then on the 8^th make sure to watch the awards on NBC. Happy Voting!

Until next time,

Annie

Facebook voting: https://www.facebook.com/ChaseCommunityGiving

Chase voting: https://www.chasegiving.com/

  

Giving Back this Holiday Season

The Holidays are upon us and thus the gift buying begins. While you are deciding what to get people this year pause and think for a minute as to what your gift will bring other than happiness. Are you buying something that is fair trade? Something that gives back? Or something that supports local business? There are some great ways this year to help give back while also getting things for those you love:

• West Elm has mugs for $10 and $5 supports one of I believe seven causes
• Look for the St. Jude’s symbol at stores to help give to St. Judes
• Gap has a gift card that when purchased 2% goes to Care or Communities in Schools
•  Think about purchasing fair trade items; visit Ten Thousand Villages or Whole Foods
• Purchase local; think about going to the little stores around town instead of the big corporations
• Instead of giving gifts, donate to a non-profit
• While the sales continue purchase children’s toys and items and donate them to a local non-profit, hospital, daycare, etc.

The list goes on and on. There are so many ways that you can help make a difference this holiday season, just figure out how you want to do so. Happy Holidays!

Until next week,

Annie

Helpful Websites:

St. Judes: http://www.tg.stjude.org/partners

Gap: http://www.gap.com/customerService/info.do?cid=2116&tid=gpemmain1&EV=GWMET11082012&DI=91419277&CD=GNC_GPR

Ten Thousand Villages: http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/

America Recycles Day

I apologize for my absence but am going to make a great effort to post every week from now through the holidays! Tomorrow is America Recycles Day; cue Annie’s inner nerd. If you are someone that already recycles that is great; keep doing it. If you are someone that does not yet participate in the art of recycling then tomorrow is a great day for you to start doing so. There are so many ways you can help our environment and I am going to post just a few here. You should also check out the America Recycles Day webpage and take the pledge to recycle more. In the meantime here are some recycling tips:

• Make sure to buy materials made from recycled materials (seventh generation is a company that does a great job at this)

• Plastic bags can be recycled and many grocery stores and now even some department stores have containers for them

• Start collecting materials that are not usually recyclable to send into Terracycle

• Recycle every can of soda, water bottle, orange juice, and milk container

• Look at the bottom of your items, a lot of times they can be recycled

• When you are done reading your weekly People Magazine either lend it to someone else to read or recycle it

• Join recyclebank and learn about ways to recycle while earning points

These are just some ideas for you to do more but the most important thing is that you are at least thinking about and making an effort to recycle. A lot of places make it very easy for you by having curbside pick-up but if you don’t, do not let that stop you from recycling. I always enjoyed going to the recycling center in college to drop my stuff off, it makes for a fun adventure. Happy Recycling!

Until next week,

Annie

America Recycles Day: http://americarecyclesday.org/

Terracycle: http://www.terracycle.com/en-US/

Seventh Generation: http://www.seventhgeneration.com/

Recyclebank: https://www.recyclebank.com/join/earnpoints