Greetings from San Francisco and an Opportunity to Do Good

Hello from beautiful San Francisco! It really is beautiful, too...the weather is gorgeous, the city vibrant and fun. I'm grateful to be here and wanted to share some photos with you from my touristy trip through town yesterday. I'll share those a little further down in this post, but first, something more important...

Have you heard about DonorsChoose.org? I am so totally pumped about this organization that is providing much-needed support for public and charter schools in the United States, one classroom, one teacher, one project at a time. By visiting the DonorsChoose website, anyone can view project requests from teachers all over the United States and donate any amount, large or small, to helping teachers reach those goals. You can search for projects by geographic area or by keywords so you can support your local area or a project that is dear to your heart. For your generosity, you get real thank you letters from teachers and students and photos of the students enjoying what you helped to support.

DonorsChoose is the brainchild of Charles Best, a former Bronx high school teacher. Charles kept having and hearing the same conversations among his fellow teachers. There simply wasn't any money available for the projects, library items, field trips, and equipment teachers wanted for their classrooms. Charles started simply with a low-tech approach; he used free desserts to bribe fellow teachers to visit a simple website he built and type in their most cherished projects, the ones they most wished they could do. He then anonymously funded the projects himself.

Word got out that the website worked, and requests spread. Charles enlisted his students for a volunteer letter writing campaign and raised the first $30,000 to fund DonorsChoose.

Now, DonorsChoose.org's website houses requests from teachers all over the United States. The requests are all checked out by a volunteer corps of teachers who have successfully used the program themselves and who make sure each project is legitimate and meets the criteria. Donors can read about projects and see how much money it will take to fund it, how much has been given, and how much is still needed.

DonorsChoose is funded in part by an optional 15% administrative fee that is included in each donation. Donors can leave the fee in place or opt out at their discretion. Some costs are still met by private donors, but the company expects to be self-funded in a few years.

Cooler still are some of the ways DonorsChoose.org is working with corporations and companies. Imagine receiving a gift card from a company you do business with giving you the opportunity to make a donation to any project you choose, spending the company's money? Crate and Barrell did it, and it was a huge success. Other companies have done the same. What a great alternative to sending flowers or a box of chocolates or a tin of popcorn!

DonorsChoose.org believes in staying true to its original mission. When they recently received a million dollar award, they didn't think it was right to let the DonorsChoose.org staff allocate the money. Instead, the put the money on gift cards and distribute them to allow others to make the choices. Here at the SNCR Forum, we each received $50 cards to go onto the site and pick any project we wanted to support. I love it! It was so much fun reading all the project requests and so hard to make a decision. In the end, though, I made my choice, a Tennessee classroom that needs a digital camera for projects. You can read about it here, and make a donation of your own if you like.

I hope you will choose to visit and to give, and I hope my company, Unum, will consider including DonorsChoose in their giving programs. I'm certainly going to make a case for it.

Now, as promised, photos. Enjoy!

The California adventure continues..

Today was fun! I started the day in the Muir Woods Redwood Preserve and an easy mile-and-a-half loop on the trails. New photos are on Flickr.

What an amazing place! I know now what "the forest primeval" means. To the eye, it looks pretty much the same as Armstrong Woods that I visited yesterday. That makes sense; two old-growth forests in the same area, same types of plants, etc. Muir Woods is very old, though, and I think probably older than the Armstrong area, though I need to research that. 2008 marks the 100th year of the Muir Woods as a named entity, and the forest itself is ancient.

The first thing I noticed about the woods was the smell. Oh, that wonderful smell! Fresh, clean, earthy... heavenly.

Then there was the doe and fawn that crossed the trail. A guide leading a group of children noticed the pair trying to cross the trail to get to the creek. After finally getting the children and the oblivious adults to be still and somewhat quiet, the doe crossed but the baby was spooked by the crowd and failed to cross. Little deer starts looking for momma deer all around and can't find her. Everyone was oh-no-ing quietly.

Now, I've been told by more than one person that I carry a lot of "momma energy," and I know it's true. I got a little reminder of that today. As I watched the fawn search for momma, I said a little prayer and just asked the Lady to guide the little one to momma. Where does the fawn go? To me...all but into my hand. I think she (gender chosen for convenience; the fawn wasn't THAT close) would have just followed me across the road, until the kids realized the fawn was right under their feet and got excited. Baby ran back into the woods. The doe had started calling, and finally came back across, collected her offspring, and crossed back to the creek. We moved on. It was beautiful.

Next: San Francisco! I drove to Pier 39 and played at Fisherman's Wharf all afternoon. The best thing about SF and northern California in general is that it's drop-dead beautiful. The wharf was fun...lots of shopping, mostly touristy stuff, some jewelry, and food. Oh, and they had an honest-to-goodness arcade - that was fun! I didn't play anything; I just enjoyed walking through the dimly lit palace of fun things. Dinner was The Eagle Cafe. It was good, and the bartender made me the best bloody mary I've ever had! It had freshly grated horseradish in it and the rim was sportig a layer of seasoned salt. Yum!

Finally headed for San Carlos and the hotel I booked on Orbitz. I have to say that I am impressed with Orbitz. I hadn't written down the hotel address so I called Orbitz for help. They found me in the computer system with just my first and last name and were able to give me everything I needed. With their help and the guidance of the trusty GPS system in my rental car, I got where I was going without mishap.

Now it's time to pack up and get some shut-eye. My flight home is 6:00 AM, which means a 3:30 departure from my lovely room. Hope I can sleep on the plane!

G'night.