Lend a hand and fight diabetes for free

I stumbled across this and wanted to pass it along to all of you - it's a free way to help diabetes charities, and could serve as a great interactive way of getting your kids involved in a cause!

The Global Diabetes Handprint project is a worldwide project that lets anyone join the fight against diabetes. By writing a word on your hand expressing your feelings about diabetes, and sharing the story behind it, you’ll become part of a global community that puts a human face
on diabetes for all the world to see. For every hand picture that is uploaded (or created online using their virtual hand maker), OneTouch will donate $5 to a charity (either Diabetes Education and Camping Association OR Taking Control of Your Diabetes). Their goal is to donate $250,000 by the end of June 2009.

Mr. Bean and I each took a picture of our hand (notice I used tape on my hand since I could only find a permanet marker). On my hand I wrote FIGHT and Mr. Bean chose FIERCE (this picture is of my hand against the backdrop of an incoming rainstorm). My grandfather, who passed away in 2007, had diabetes for years and never complained. I ached for him watching him prick his fingers 10, 12, 15 times a day, and yet he always kept going. When I go to donate blood and they use the finger prick syringe to check my iron levels, I think of him. I think that's more painful than the donation itself, but I remember how dutiful he was about his sugar level and his diet, and I try to remain strong.

If you want to upload an image of your own hand (or of your children, spouse, etc), visit Global Diabetes Handprint today! You do not have to have diabetes to participate. Feel free to let me know if you do so!

SITS Spring Fling: $10 Charity Giveaway

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING!

I've been itching to join the Spring Fling led by The Secret is in the Sauce (SITS), and the day to begin is finally here! In case you haven't heard, Spring Fling includes a number of sponsored giveaways over at SITS, but it also includes giveaways all across the blogosphere. So once you're done entering this giveaway, please visit Spring Fling to enter some of the others!

Okay, let's get down to business: the Bean's giveaway. I've been thinking long and hard about what to give away for this event, and the thing that kept on popping into my head was that I need to give more. I know, you're thinking, "Damn girl, you're hosting a giveaway. What more can you do?" My thoughts exactly. In economic times like these, I can't give much, but I can give a little. So here's the giveaway prize:

$10 donation by me to a charity chosen by the winner

Whether you're an animal right crusader, a soldier in the fight against breast cancer, or an environment advocate, I want to hear about it! To enter:

1. FOR ONE ENTRY: Comment on this post telling me which charity you would want the contribution to go to if you win. If you're not logged in, be sure to leave your email address instead of commenting anonymously so I can contact you if you win.

2. FOR A BONUS ENTRY: Begin following this blog – please mention in a comment if you are already doing so or if you begin to do so.

3. FOR 2 BONUS ENTRIES: Mention this giveaway on your own blog and link back to The Sweet Jelly Bean. Please comment on this post to let me know you've done so!

RULES: The winner must be a US resident, and the charity of their choice must be a US 501(c)(3) organization (if you're not sure if yours is, ask me and I can look it up for you. I work for a nonprofit).

This giveaway ends Thursday, March 12, 2009 at 7pm PST. All eligible entries will be thrown into a hat (well, probably a water glass around our apartment), and a winner will be drawn by Mr. Bean. The winner will be announced here and contacted following the close of the contest - they can then let me know for sure what charity they'd like the donation to go to, and in whose name (if applicable). Good luck everyone, and be sure to enter my other giveaways - look over to the right hand column near the top of the page and you'll see links to them.

Recession-Friendly Ways to Help Others...for free...online

As a grant writer in the nonprofit industry, I am always hunting down new ways to help out organizations that are important to me, especially now in the current economy. Here are three handpicked ways to help nonprofits (and those that they serve) that are totally free.

1. Click
How many times do you click (or tap) your mouse every day? 100? 1,000? Why not add a couple of more clicks to your daily routine (great pointer finger exercise!) by visiting the six pages created by CharityUSA.com, which include The Animal Rescue Site (use this link to get to the others), The Hunger Site, The Breast Cancer Site, The Child Health Site, The Literacy Site, and The Rainforest Site. Stop by one or all of these sites and click once on the big button each day. When you click, a few ads are shown (no popups or spyware). The sponsors behind those ads made a contribution because you’ve seen those ads, which then goes directly to the site’s charity partners. You can even get a daily email to help you remember to click. Pretty cool, huh?

2. Buy
Hold it! I’m not trying to sneak in a plea for you to whip out your credit card and plunk down $100 to make a difference. If you’re planning to make a purchase on Amazon.com anyway, get there by using this link, which takes your to ClickJar. There you’ll be able to choose which nonprofit will get up to 4% of your purchase (current options are UNICEF, the American Red Cross, Amnesty International, Rainforest Action Network, and Habitat for Humanity).

3. Volunteer Online
This is a great opportunity to make a difference if you’re on the computer a lot already! I've been volunteering online with an organization called I Could Be since March 2008. It is an anonymous, online mentoring system where you help underserved students follow a curriculum that helps them explore their options for college and careers. You are selected by the students to be a mentor for a year based on their interests matching your career field or expertise (i.e. students who are interested in Education might be mentored by a teacher who would answer their questions about what their day is like, etc). The organization asks for about an hour of your time each week – for me, this is usually spent in 20 minute increments a couple of times each week going over my mentee’s homework or answering questions about what I do.

I continue to use all of these sites and have never had any issues, so please check them out!

The Bean's Pick: Uncommon Goods

This pick is one of my favorite online stores (and I also love their catalogs that come in the mail). Meet Uncommon Goods, an online store based out of Brooklyn dedicated to bringing you "creatively designed, high-quality merchandise at affordable prices." Visit their website and you'll find everything from home decor to baby onesies to garden gnomes. Browse through their items and you'll see their focus on offering a number of "green" products, many made via fair trade practices (they sell a number of repurposed products such as photo frames made out of old magazines, vases made of old windshields, and clocks made out of vintage camera bodies). Their website features a review system where buyers can rate products for quality, price, value, etc. Perhaps my favorite thing about Uncommon Goods is their Better to Give program, where customers gain the opportunity to contribute a portion of their purchase to a non-profit organization. Not bad! Some of our favorite items:

Lumen Oil Lamp Shadow Projectors $48; candle refills, set of 2 for $5
The #1 item I am craving from Uncommon Goods right now! Invented by artist Adam Frank, this modern little oil lamp casts an enchanting shadow from a tiny, stainless steel tree. As the flame flickers, the shadow of the tree moves like a light breeze is rustling its branches. A unique twist on a normal candle. Comes with two containers of odorless, clean-burning liquid wax that last 17 hours each. Available in five styles (from left to right): Cedar, Nest, Magnolia, Pine, and Bloom. Made in Brooklyn.

Gnomes-be-Gones with Gnome $125
How can you not love this? Your average, everyday garden gnome being carried away by two creepy, metallic critters with sharp teeth and no tongues. Excellent!







Bingo Clock $35
Made with reclaimed vintage bingo cards from a church in Pennsyvalnia. Very cool!

Recycled Multi-Color Wood Frame $48
A picture frame made from recycled wood from old boats, houses, schools and buildings in Thailand.




If you don't see anything that piques your interest here, I recommend you still check them out. They basically carry all sorts of cool things you never knew you needed!

P.S. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!

A website that lets you donate to charities for free

As I've mentioned, I am a grant writer, which is a bit of an interesting thing in the current economy. While some charities are still fairing well, others are not so lucky. Many soup kitchens, for example, are now seeing their client base doubled and tripled, some newcomers perhaps previous donors. I work for an arts organization, and it's been really hard to pitch to our funders that they should give us money when there are people going hungry out there. I mean, if a family usually gives $100 a year and now can only give $20, who should they give to? An arts organization...or to a charity that helps clothe children?

The point of all of this is that I believe in helping these organizations out when I can, whether it be through donations, volunteer service, etc. One free way of helping charities out during this mess is through GoodSearch. It's a normal search engine (it actually was created by Yahoo and runs on their search platform), but every time you search for something, the charity of your choice gets a penny. This might sound like small potatoes, but if you do a few searches a day along with other supporters of the charity, it could really add up. GoodSearch also has a program called GoodShop - for this, if you go to their site first, then click through to 1 of 1000s of online stores participating, a percentage of the sale you make is given to your favorite charity - for FREE. There's no catch, and it won't cost you a cent to help these organizations out. So give it a whirl - in a time of crisis for many, doing something so simple might just help make your day.