One more appeal, and I'll shut up. Really.
Chase Community Giving, currently going on at Facebook, is a competition for charitable organizations sponsored by Chase Bank. It asks people to vote online for charitable organizations that they support, with each person being able to vote for up to 20 different organizations. The first round of voting will end at 11:55 PM Eastern Time on December 11th (only 2 days away!), and Chase Bank will award the 100 charities with the most number of votes with an $25,000 prize each. These top 100 charities will also compete in a second round of voting next January, for a chance to win an one million dollar grand prize and five $100,000 prizes.
I am asking people to consider voting for several charities that help disadvantaged and orphaned children in China. I want to emphasize the point that no donation at all is being asked for, all you need to do to help is to cast votes online. All of these organizations have done wonderful work on behalf of Chinese kids; they have changed many, many lives for the better. Some of them are focused on sponsoring primary and secondary education for kids in impoverished rural areas of China, others are focused on saving the lives of kids with serious medical conditions such as congenital heart disease, or who have suffered trauma injuries such as severe burns.
What can a $25,000 prize do?
It can help hundreds of poor rural kids go to school for another year.
It can save the lives of ten children with congenital heart disease.
It can provide loving foster care for dozens of children with special needs.
It can build an elementary school in China's countryside.
It can train doctors in China in cutting-edge surgery and therapy techniques to help children who have suffered severe burn injuries.
I can go on. All of these charities are run volunteers, and have extremely low or even 0 administrative costs. Several of these organizations are still fairly small in scale, and $25,000 would mean a tremendous deal to them. All it takes to help is a few clicks of the mouse, nothing more.
If you are interested, here is how to vote:
1. Log into Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com
If you do not have a Facebook account, it only takes a few minutes to register one. You will not need to provide any personal information except your name and birthday.
2. Go to the Chase Community Giving main page:
http://www.facebook.com/ChaseCommunityGiving
Click the "Become a Fan" button at the top of the page (next to the "Chase Community Giving" title). A verification code will appear, which you will be asked to type in (please make sure javascript is enabled on your browser). This is needed in order to vote; you can remove yourself from being a fan after the competition is over.
3. Go to the voting page of one of the charities, for instance Half the Sky Foundation, which brings nurturing individual care to young children in Chinese orphanages, and individualized mentoring to older kids:
http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/670139
Click the blue "Vote for charity" button. The first time you vote, you will be asked whether to allow access to your Facebook data. Please choose "allow". This is for the purpose of counting the votes only, and will not affect any personal data you have on Facebook. If the vote is casted successfully, the button will become "Thank you for voting".
4. Go to the voting page of the other charities and vote in the same manner. I know it looks long, but I just wanted to list them all since they all do such great work. If you can vote for all of these charities, that would of course be the most wonderful; if you wish to vote for only some of them, that would be tremendously helpful, too.
The charities:
Half the Sky Foundation (http://www.halfthesky.org/):
Voting page: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/670139
Helps kids in Chinese orphanages.
Shin Shin Educational Foundation (http://www.shinshinfoundation.org):
Voting page: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/501214
Build schools in rural China.
China Care Foundation:
Voting page: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/264316
Helps Chinese orphans with serious medical conditions.
Hand by Hand Education Foundation (http:/www.hbhef.org):
Voting page: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/1040864
Sponsors elementary and secondary education for poor children in rural China.
HandReach (http://www.handreach.org):
Voting page: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/388171
Helps children suffering from severe burn injuries.
Overseas China Education Foundation (http://www.ocef.org):
Voting page: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/963678
Sponsors education for disadvantaged Chinese children.
Overseas Save Chinese Children Foundation (http://www.osccf.org):
Voting page: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/784680
Raises medical funds for disadvantaged Chinese kids with serious medical conditions.
Angel Heart International (http://www.angelheartintl.org):
Voting page: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/493661
Helps Chinese children with congenital heart disease.
International Children's Heart Foundation (http://www.babyheart.org):
Voting page: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/484371
Helps children with congenital heart disease around the world.
American Chinese Culture and Education Foundation (http://www.accef.net):
Voting page: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/1154151
Helps the education of poor school children in rural China.
Chinese Mutual Aid International Network (http://www.cmain.org):
Voting page: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/968344
Rebuilding schools in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake area.
Love Without Boundarie (http://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com):
Voting page: http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/263934
Helps special needs orphans in China.
To anyone who is reading this: thank you so much. I truly appreciate it!