late-breaking new year's resolution!

yeah, i know it's already february, but i'm pretending that's a perfectly normal time to make new year's resolutions, so hush. also i've technically already followed through with this in january, which helps make this seem more legit and like i planned this on purpose.

i really wish i could remember whose idea this was originally - someone mentioned this in the comments section of a blog i read normally, but now i can't even remember what the post was about, much less whose blog it was or the name of the commenter, so.. whoops! sorry, dear unnamed commenter who i cannot remember, but thank you for this fantastic idea, which is simply:

i'm going to donate to a new charity every month throughout 2010.

simple! easy! makes me feel better about being the generally fairly useless member of society that i usually am!

like most of us, i donated to the red cross in january to help with the haiti disaster relief. and recently, suburban sweetheart tweeted about volunteer opportunities with local abortion clinics, which will be targeted for 40 days starting in mid-february by an anti-abortion group. i'm hoping to volunteer to be an escort for at least a few of those days, but it inspired me to donate to planned parenthood in conjunction.

ideally, it would be neat if i could continue having opportunities pop up like this to make each month's donation relevant to what i'm doing or what's going on in the world at any given time, but obviously there is no shortage of worthy causes that can use my wee chunk o' change.

interested in joining me? you can donate to planned parenthood here, or to the red cross here. (more info on becoming an escort here.)

as of monday i'll be eligible to donate blood as well, and then HOT DAMN. i'll be available to receive my civic duty medal any time that's convenient.

(ETA: looks like this particular cause is even MORE relevant than i knew! check out marie's post today about the tim tebow superbowl ad.)