Do-Gooding with a Kapital K

Ah, Kiva. If you haven't heard of it yet, then you are living under a rock with no web access. Seriously, though, Kiva is the leading microlending site on the web, empowering regular ol' folks (read: people like me) to give give personal loans to people who need a little bit of money (read: usually between $200-$800 USD) to get their business (read: livelihood and means of survival) where it needs to be. There are no real banks involved, and the money comes from regular ol' folks who give $25+ USD a pop until the loan is funded. When the loan gets repaid, the money sits in your Kiva account as a credit, waiting to help another person in need. Oh, and you, the lender, get paid interest. As if you were a bank, and as if you would do this to make $0.17 USD off of the $25 USD you lent out.

I love Kiva. I love the time they take to partner with reputable organizations. I love the team fundraising aspect (although I always have a tough time picking which of my teams will get my funding credit). I love that repayments get fed back into Kiva, ready to help another person. I love the community aspect. I love that you can read about the things your loan went to that helps someone a thousand miles away. Kiva just flat out rocks.

And it costs less than getting a venti Caramel Macchiato twice a week at Starbucks. So why not build up your karma and do something good for the world, and perhaps your waistline, and visit Kiva today.

RAINN-drops keep falling on my head...

GoogleAlerts is quite amazing. Give it a set of search parameters to look for, and it will email you every time those parameters whenever the GoogleBots find whatever it is you're looking for, you get an email. Brilliant!

This morning, I woke up to an email GoogleAlerts. It wanted me to know that CurrentVine.com, a blog dedicated to "fast and fun doses of entertainment," had featured my online fiber arts store because I'm a RAINNmaker. Check out the mini-feature on my store and how to make your own contributions to RAINN.

Thank you, GoogleBots, for spreadin' the news, and thank you, Dear Reader, for supporting RAINN.

Handmade Militia

Happy Friday!

In a little over 24 hours, I will make the (short) trek north to Fort Collins, where I will join a battallion (okay, it's more like a detail) of crafty folks who want to help you give unique, awesome, handmade gifts that support real people (like me!).

Handmade Militia will be at Gallery Underground in Old Town Fort Collins. The official address is at 109 Linden Street, but Google Maps freaks out with that address. Better to go to the intersection of Mountain and College, find the Avery Building's Big White Statute, and walk down the stairs to the show. The show goes from 1100 - 1900 (that's 11:00AM to 7:00PM for you non-militant folk), and will feature some fabulous artists.



As always, I will be donating 10% of my gross sales to RAINN, the national sexual assault advocacy center.

Buy handmade this holiday season!

Please buy handmade this year

With all of the commercially-available made items that are surrounded by holiday blitz, it's hard to get back to values.

You can help by buying handmade. A handmade gift supports a family and eases the demand for sweatshop and/or child labor produced items. You get a unique product that no one else will have that is made with love. You get an item that is lead-free, more likely to be eco-friendly, and supports the microbusiness movement.

There are so many wonderful handmade items to be had. You can, of course, find them on Etsy, or through a host of other handmade sites. You can make them yourself. You can buy fair-trade handmade (Ten Thousand Villages in Cherry Creek is a great source of fair-trade).

Replacing even one potential mass-produced gift with a handmade gift can make a world of difference if we all pitch in. Take the handmade pledge at Buy Handmade.

Do it today. Your heart, a handmade artist, and a child in China will thank you.