Thursday, May 19, 2011

Ordinary People Are Anything But Ordinary!

Two days ago I posted a Facebook status that said something like if every single one of my Facebook Friends would give me just 99 cents I'd have a whopping $559.35 to donate to the American Cancer Society Relay For Life.

And to my surprise someone said, "I'll do it."

And then another person said, "I'm in."

And then another person said, "Where's your donate button?" which launched a three-hour crash course in navigating PayPal and java script and inserting widgets into a blog.

And now, less than two days later a total of $112.82 has been donated towards cancer research!

And that just blows my mind. Because I knew people were good. I knew people were giving. I just underestimated how good and how giving.

And then someone asked if they could mail me a dollar. And I said of course!

And then I thought wow I start a lot of sentences with prepositional phrases.

And after that I thought what if that dollar had something awesome on it to further raise cancer awareness...

And I thought what if it had an inspirational message on it and then as the dollar found its way into circulation one day someone affected by cancer would go to the pharmacy to pick up some medication and get their change back and there it was - a message that they needed to see that might just change their day.

Something like this:


And I thought I know! I can ask people to mail me a decorated dollar ... and they can write whatever they want on it: a quote, a message, a picture, a name, a cancer awareness ribbon - anything! And then I'll take a photo of it and post each decorated dollar in an online photo album!

And I thought that would be freaking cool.

Except then I remembered that writing on currency is probably considered defacing government property and although I've heard some federal prisons are pretty cushy and I could probably learn to crochet while doing my time, I probably shouldn't be encouraging others to deface government property.

But then I thought what if someone found a dollar bill that happened to already be decorated? And that someone then chose to mail it to me so I could donate it to the American Cancer Society?

I think then we'd have a lot of really cool dollar bills floating around that did double duty: being donated to be used towards cancer research, and then being used to brighten somebody's day.

So, if you happen to find a decorated dollar and wish to mail it to me to be used towards the overall donations, please contact me at:

bridget0625 [at] yahoo [dot] com

In the meantime, please keep sharing this link! The more people who donate just 99 cents the bigger the difference we can make.

2 comments:

  1. I didn't want to donate via PayPal because I know from previous experience that PayPal keeps about forty cents of a one dollar donation. So instead I figured I'd just go straight to the American Cancer Society site and donate a dollar there.

    Wait a sec... their site has a minimum of five dolalrs for a donation. Huh.

    I guess I'll just have to give them a fiver. ;-) But you gave me the idea, really! (Via Renee C. on Facebook)

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  2. That's true, Stephen. I'm covering all the PayPal Fees (they're charging 33 cents for each donation) - donating that amount to make all donations "whole." I searched high and low for a free one, but couldn't find one. And yes, without bashing PayPal, it bugged me. Really, PayPal - what's up with your fees?!

    And I know ACS would appreciate your fiver!!

    Thank you SO MUCH for your support!!

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