Help! (Thursday Thirteen #23)

It seems everybody’s always asking for something and it usually involves money and/or time. There’s a reason for this. There are a lot of organizations out there that do very good work that need money and/or time to do what they do. If you don’t ask, you don’t get anything.

Next Saturday, July 28th, I will be participating in Blogathon 2007. If you’re not familiar with Blogathon, you can learn all about it here. Basically, philanthropic bloggers donate their time in order to raise money for a non-profit of their choosing by blogging/throwing a party on their site/whatever they come up with/ for an entire 24 hours.



My chosen charity is VH1 Save The Music Foundation. Music education is all but vanishing in schools all across this country and not only is this terribly sad, it is a huge mistake.

From VH1’s website...“Research has shown that musical study develops critical thinking and self discipline skills and improves a child's early cognitive development, basic math and reading abilities, self-esteem, SAT scores, ability to work in teams, spatial reasoning skills, and school attendance. Also, researchers have found that children involved with music education are more likely to graduate from high school and attend college, and are less likely to be involved with gangs and substance abuse.”

Music appears everywhere in our lives. Think about it. It is in our homes, in our cars, in our places of worship, in our workplaces, in restaurants, and it’s in every TV show and movie. Music exists within every culture on this planet. It is in our ears and in our hearts. Hopefully, it will stay in our schools, too. I wouldn’t want to imagine a life without it and our children shouldn’t have to, either.

Today is Thursday Thirteen....and here's mine...

Thirteen WAYS YOU CAN HELP THE ROCK CHICK AND VH1 SAVE THE MUSIC 1. You can sponsor me with a monetary donation in any amount (even $1!) by clicking here. All you have to do is complete a very short registration form and your tax-deductible donation goes directly to VH1 Save The Music Foundation. It doesn’t go to me, nor do I ever see any of your personal information. 2. You can volunteer to be a guest blogger on my site during the Blogathon. The Blogathon duration is 24 hours and participants are required to post a blog entry at least once every 30 minutes. This is a lot of posts and while music is everywhere, each of us does have a personal connection to it. I’m thinking a variety of personal stories would be interesting! I’ve already either received or been promised guest blog entries from Damien, Michael C, one of my musician friends, (but non-blogger), The Big BahUna as well as one from my own daughter, Samantha Hollywood. If you’d like you’re name on this list (along with lots of “Link Love”) just let me know! 3. If you are unable to donate money or a guest blog entry, if you could put a link on your site to this post in case some of your readers would to help, that would be GREAT! Help spread the word! If all the 13'ers did only this, I think this event would be very successful! 4. If you would promise to post an entry on your blog about what I’m doing DURING Blogathon 2007, (you know, steering people to my blog,) I would be most grateful, as well. 5. If you don’t have a blog or a site, tell your friends and family to come here and help me out by doing any of these things! 6. If you’d like to send me a YouTube video of you or your band performing, I would love to post it during the Blogathon. Writing about it is one thing, hearing and seeing it in action is quite another. 7. Don’t have a video, but have a recording you’d like to share? Send it to me and I’ll figure out a way to play it! 8. If you don’t want to share anything, but just want completely shameless self-promotion for you, your band, your blog, your business or any project you are working on, I will gladly provide that for a monetary donation to VH1 Save The Music Foundation, too! 9. I’d like to have a contest during the Blogathon, but I’m having trouble thinking of one easy enough to pull off successfully. If you have any ideas, please share them! 10. Please visit me during Blogathon 2007. 24 hours is a long time and if I’m sitting here all by myself, I will be very lonely. There’s few things sadder than a lonely Rock Chick. Maybe I’ll get a chat room set up for the event! 11. If my chosen charity isn’t the “one for you”, there are at least 350 other bloggers participating in Blogathon 2007 for hundreds of various non-profit organizations. Please support one of them. 12. And...one more plug for Shelly @ This Eclectic Life and her “Share A Square” project. Go there, read about it, crochet some squares or see if you can help her out with anything else she needs, ok? 13. If anyone happens to know Bon Jovi, please feel free to give him my phone number. This is for me, not for any charity event. Hey, like I said, if you don’t ask... ;) Ok, back to my regularly scheduled rantings. Thanks, as always, for listening :)