Make a difference with a shipping container

If the billboards around where I live are to be believed (and they are just an advertising campaign) then a child dies every 6 seconds in the world from hunger. Indeed, a recent study has shown that 2,500 children die in Africa alone on a daily basis just due to a lack of access to clean water.

So where am I going with this?
Well, just as I chellenged my fellow bloggers to promote the cause of the Blogger Bakeoff, it would not be appropriate if I myself did not promote the cause on my blog.

And so here I am... promoting.

The fact is that I have been hungry today. Very hungry. It was my own fault - I hadn't had the opportunity to eat all day. But then I went to the kitchen and made myself a sandwich. And there is the difference, or at least the difference that Breadline Africa want to make. Every $10,000 that they raise can be used to convert a shipping container into a bread kitchen for an African community - a community that don't have that same opportunity to go and make themselves a sandwich when hungry.

So what am I saying...
Well, by clicking on the little box on the right, you will be taken to the Blogger Bakeoff website, where you can make a donation in Dollars, Pounds, or more importantly in Rands. And even if it is just R5 or R10 - it is more than nothing.

So make a big difference with a small action.

When downloading a Widget just isn't enough...

If you have been floating around the South African Blogosphere in the past few weeks, you have probably stumbled across posts and items relating to the Blogger Bakeoff - an initiative by Breadline Africa to raise $1m to "bring food and hope to poor communities in Africa by helping to convert shipping containers into community kitchens."

But if you had looked at some of those blogs where the "Collection Widget" had been downloaded, you'd have noticed that the "Donations from this Blog" still read $0.
In fact, the campaign has been running for nearly 3 weeks, and so far (at the time of writing this blog post, only collected $2,557.

Admittedly - there are a number of ways of getting involved in the initiative, and not all of them include donating money. However, how many of us have just downloaded the widget and given it not a second thought?

The Breadline Africa people that I have spoken to are aiming at collecting their £1m - and have estimated that they will need to enlist the help of 100,000 bloggers internationally. By a very quick calculation (using both my fingers and toes) I figure that every blog therefore needs to collect $10.

So why haven't we yet?
At first I know that the great big $ sign used on the blog is a magnificent detterent to donating - fearful of what the exchange rate might do next. But when I processed a donation, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could donate in Rands - and that my donation was thereafter converted on my widget. I know this is a particular matter that the good people at Breadline Africa are attending to - but it doesn't stop us donating in Rands now.

And if you don't want to donate yourself - then why aren't we promoting our widget, and encouraging OTHERS to donate through our blogs?

In total, each South African blog writer needs to collect somewhere between R80 and R100 to have their little widget clock up to the magical $10. If each of us has a dedicated audience of 10... or 20 readers - well on average we are talking a very small amount.

And yet our widgets remain at ZERO...

And what of our readers?
Readers of blogs cannot just ignore the good efforts of the blog writers. I don't really mind, nor care, if people use my blog, or someone else's blog to make a donation. The important part is that every $10,000 collected can be used to convert a container to a kitchen. So ERVERY small amount helps - from WHATEVER the source.

We all need to do our part.
I challenge every blog writer in South Africa to try to get their donations tally to the magical $10. And every blog reader to make some kind of donation. Even R10 will register on your favorite blog as a $1 contribution.

Let's stop the $0 and get into some REAL action!

Bid or Buy - or in my case Guess and Win... and Donate

You might had read my post on Wednesday, talking about the Bid or Buy auction competition, and if you did, you would have seen both my guess of the closing highest bid, and my pledge to donate any prize I might win to the Worldwide Blogger Bakeoff.

Well, in this modern age, apparently small miracles do happen, and this morning I learned that my guess of R67,467 was the closest of all the guesses, and that the prize of R300 was mine!

And so true to my word, I have donated my R300 to the Worldwide Blogger Bakeoff campaign, over and above a previous donation I made.

Thanks to Bid or Buy for inviting me to participate.
Their next competition is next week, and once more I will be participating (and donating if I win)

Bid or Buy for Breadline Africa

Here’s something different – I have been invited to take part in a competition! Well, who am I to scoff at an invitation!

The competition is open to South African bloggers and is being run by Bid or Buy – an online auction website based here in South Africa.
It revolves around the auction of a VW TenaCity Golf that starts on Thursday, 23rd October. The winner is the blogger who best guesses the final winning bid – in other words guesses closest to the closing bid. There is a monetary prize for the winner.

Well let’s see… I think that the closing bid will be R67,467.

But here’s something else…

Right now there is a “Worldwide Blogger Bakeoff” happening. This is an initiative of Breadline Africa, and aims to convert shipping containers into locations for food production and distribution. These sustainable community kitchens will not only provide foods such as bread and soup to those in need, but also opportunities for skills development within these poor communities. Under the banner, “Bake Bread – Give Dough”, Breadline Africa has a number of ways that you can get involved:

* Join the campaign.
* Submit your bread baking recipe.
* Make a donation to Breadline Africa.
* Vote for your favourite recipe.
* Bake a loaf of bread and blog about it.
* Bake many loaves of bread and host a bake sale.

For my part I have added the fund raising widget, displayed to in the right hand column of my blog.

So back to the Bid or Buy competition... As I am not in the habit of advertising or promotions, should my guess at the closing bid in the auction be the closest and by some strange tear in the stitching of our universe, I win the monetary prize, I will donate it to the Blogger Bakeoff.