the Way of the Turtle

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...
Patrick Rothfuss' Heifer International Fundraiser
Thursday, December 4, 2008

A while back I wrote about reading a post on Amazon by author Patrick Rothfuss about how he spent an hour or so on a July afternoon escorting a duck and her ducklings on their journey through the center of his town... I have since purchased his 1st novel, The Name of the Wind, though I haven't read it yet (and since it's the first book in a trilogy I'll probably wait for the other two to be released and read the whole thing at once... one of the advantages of having an enormous backlog of books to read.) Some of the things he said in his post made me think I might enjoy reading more of what Pat has to say, so I've visited his blog once or twice a month since then, and recently discovered a fundraiser he's hosting which I think is worth mentioning.

There's a Chinese proverb which translates as "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." That was the first thing that came to my mind when I first heard about Heifer International (on some daytime talk show, I honestly can't remember which one or even how I came to be watching it) a charity organization with the goal of ending poverty and hunger by providing people and communities with a variety of types of animals and the training needed to care for them and then sking that they share the offspring and training with their neighbors. The idea is to provide people with something that can make a long term difference in their lives and ultimately help them to become self-reliant while also encouraging them to help others in their community to also become self-reliant. I think it's a brilliant idea, maybe because I'm a guy who's never had to be hungry a day of his life and pretty ignorant of what it truly takes to help someone living in horrible conditions in Africa or South America, but as a teacher it's always made more sense to me to do something for people in need that can help them change their lives for the better. The fact that Heifer International's philosophy aims for sustainability makes what they do even more attractive to me, and I'd had it in the back of my mind to make a donation to them this year.

Anyway, Pat started a fundraiser for Heifer International in which he would match the incoming donations and provide some cool prizes (various signed editions of his book and so on) as raffle awards. I think he set an initial goal of raising $5000, which probably seemed pretty ambitious at the time.

And then word got out... and money started rolling in... and more prizes were donated by an unbelievable number of authors and publishers... and Pat's fundraiser took off in ways I don't know that anyone ever dreamed it would. He has multiple posts for November and December detailing the additional prizes as they keep coming in, and he has currently reset the goal for $35,000 (as of yesterday he was just shy of the $30,000 mark.) I have no doubt he'll reach $35k by December 11, which means that thanks both his generosity and the willingness of all the folks who've donated, something like $70,000 will be going to Heifer International to make the world a better place for folks living under conditions I'm glad I can't even imagine.

Pat's blog features frequent updates, and his donations page makes it easy to assist his fundraising efforts. Feel free to help him reach his goal and spread the word about supporting this excellent cause, even if you're not interested in any of the "goodies" that are being raffled off.

JMH