Thrifty Gifty Thursday

Since Christmas is a week from Sunday, this is my last Thrifty Gifty Thursday post for 2011. I think it would be helpful to do Thrifty Gifty Thursday posts for every holiday, so I'll start again at the end of January so you can have some gift ideas for Valentine's Day :-). Today I'd like to focus on websites with a charitable slant. The first one I'd like to talk about is the Great Good Network: http://www.greatergoodnetwork.com/. It links you to different advocacy sites for different causes such as breast cancer, animal rescue, literacy, and hunger. A portion of the proceeds from the products that are sold on these sites benefit the causes that they advocate.


Another great organization is the Nothing but Nets program: http://www.nothingbutnets.net/. For a donation of $10 you can provide a family in Africa and other malaria-stricken areas with a bed net to protect them from mosquitoes. My boy Gavin DeGraw is an ambassador and has travelled to Africa to personally deliver bed nets. For those who don't want a physical Christmas gift, a donation in their name is the perfect gift.


I hope I've given you some good ideas over the past few weeks. Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season!

Walking the Walk

It looks like maybe every other blog post is going to be about Gavin, but that's not necessarily a bad thing! He's a huge supporter of the charity Nothing But Nets which provides repellant treated bed nets to African refugee camps to prevent malaria. It's not enough for Gavin to support this cause by raising money, he also plans to hand deliver the nets that his fundraising efforts have paid for as evidenced by a bulletin posted on MySpace:

"This Saturday, Gavin will be departing for Uganda to spend a week going to refuge camps to hand deliver the Malaria bed nets to those in need! Please stay tuned for pictures, videos, and very special blogs directly from each camp that he visits!"

Now that's what I call walking the walk. It's easy to talk the talk by saying that you support certain causes, only going so far as to mail a check on a regular basis. It takes real humanitarian spirit to get down in the trenches, so to speak, and actually look the people that you're helping in the eye. That's how you know that you're really making a difference. Gavin, I applaud you for being the kind of person that knows that first-hand experience of others' hardships make you a more compassionate and giving person. I also applaud your parents for instilling such values in you. You've made your fans very proud. Just when we think that we couldn't possibly love you any more than we already do, you prove us wrong by opening your own heart just a little more!