Not too long ago, I blogged about FreePledge on my personal blog. But if you missed reading that, FreePledge is a site that helps you support your favorite causes and non-profit organizations at no cost to you. FreePledge provides you with a new and innovative way to fulfill your charitable intentions when you shop for books, videos, CDs, electronics and other goods and services online at your favorite stores.

How does it work?

When you shop through FreePledge, you buy from the same retailers, pay the same prices, and get the same products and services. FreePledge is paid a commission and they give 100% of the listed donations back to non-profit organizations of your choice. And the amount of donation depends on how much you spend online. You can use the Donation Estimator to find out how much you can donate every year. Every penny makes a difference!

And there are 168 retailers and 189 non-profit organizations to choose from!

What’s new?

In conjunction with Mother’s Day this May 13th, FreePledge teams up with a host of retailers so that you can make a gift TWICE: Once to your Mum, and once to your (or her) favourite non-profit organization. Check out the Mother’s Day Store for a list of participating retailers and how much you will be able to donate to your favourite non-profit organization. Or Mum’s.

Yes, at no extra cost.

And yes, Mum will be delighted :)

Some food for thought..

Did you know that:

• about 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes? This is down from 35,000 ten years ago, and 41,000 twenty years ago. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five.
• in 1999, 10% of children in developing countries died before the age of five?! This was down from 28% fifty years ago.
• famine and wars cause just 10% of hunger deaths, although these tend to be the ones you hear about most often? The majority of hunger deaths are caused by chronic malnutrition. Families simply cannot get enough to eat. This in turn is caused by extreme poverty.
• besides death, chronic malnutrition also causes impaired vision, listlessness, stunted growth and greatly increased susceptibility to disease? Severely malnourished people are unable to function at even a basic level.
• in 1999, it was estimated that one billion people in the world suffered from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually died from it each year?
• according to the 1996 World Food Summit, 840 million people live in the condition of chronic, persistent hunger, one-seventh of our human family? The vast majority of hungry people live in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Bet you didn’t.

Often it takes just a few simple resources for impoverished people to be able to grow enough food to become self-sufficient. These resources include quality seeds, appropriate tools and access to water. Small improvements in farming techniques and food storage methods are also helpful.

How can you help?

With a simple, daily click of the yellow “Help Feed The Hungry” button at The Hunger Site, you can help provide food to those in need. You pay nothing. Food is paid for by the site’s sponsors and distributed by Mercy Corps worldwide and by America’s Second Harvest to food banks throughout the United States.

You can help even more!

In addition to clicking the yellow “Help Feed The Hungry” button, you can help even more by shopping in The Hunger Site store. With each item purchased, you generate funds for the hungry. The store offers a wide array of items to show your support as well as fair-traded and handcrafted items from around the world that help families and communities pull themselves out of the poverty and hunger cycle. And they ship internationally too! :)

But if I don’t have a credit card?

Many hunger experts believe that ultimately the best way to reduce hunger is through education. Educated people are best able to break out of the cycle of poverty that causes hunger.

Come on, every click counts in the life of a hungry person.

You know, with all these hype (that I’m creating) about Earth Day, I thought I should share with you this lengthy article on “How to green your sex life” by Treehugger.

Included in the article:

• Top 10 highly effective ways to go greener - sex toys, lubes, condoms, eco-undies (WHAT?!), you get the drift..
• So you wanna do more? - birth control, post-sex pee, and the likes..
• Sex-related trivia - did you know that worldwide, more than one in five adults has used a vibrator? And that 22% of people worldwide have had sex in the garden?
• Links to some of the thousands of “interesting” posts, e.g. 50 ways to please your lover.

Go read it now! :)