Tweetsgiving was a success.

WE DID IT!!! We raised over $10,000 in just 48 hours through the power of Twitter and social media. 336 contributors collectively raised enough money to fund a new classroom for a school in Tanzania. On this special Thanksgiving Day, all we can say is THANK YOU!

You can still donate if you’d like. Epic Change will continue to accept donations through it’s widget at Tweetsgiving.org and everything collected above and beyond the original 10,00$ goal will be earmarked for purchasing books for the school’s first library, which you may inscribe with a personal tweet of gratitude.

From Tweetsgiving to terrorism. So go the days of our lives.

This morning I woke up excited about the use of Twitter as a tool for advertising a charitable campaign. As the day wore on and news began to filter out of Mumbai, Twitter is once again proving it’s unique position in social media circles. News of the Mumbai attacks are reported to have begun surfacing on Twitter an hour before the first reports began appearing in mainstream media (such as CNN).

Having spent little time outside of work in Mumbai, I can’t begin to express how heartbroken I was when I learned of the latest attacks.  While I don’t have a close of an emotional (or personal) connection to Mumbai as I do with Bangalore or Manila, I can’t help but cry at the thought of the suffering and terror now gripping the city.

We didn’t stay at any of the hotels mentioned in the news, but we did take pictures of the Taj Mahal hotel when we were touring Mumbai and again when we were on our way to visit Elephanta.

Learn more about the attacks:

• #mumbai – Twitter
• Vignetting Life – Shot through the heart (Aditya Sengupta)
• Poynter Online – Following Mumbai Attacks via Social Media (Amy Gahran). Also at Contentious.com.
• Mumbai Metblogs

I like bricks. I spent years donating to the Juno Beach Centre fundraiser to buy my dad a brick. As a child, I loved Lego. Ok, I’m not kidding anyone, I still love Lego.  But there’s something special about charity drives that involve bricks.  They stand for something. Peace. Security. Future.

Yesterday I posted about a social media fundraiser – Tweetsgiving.  Now that I’m not blogging from my phone, I have a bit more functionality available to my blog postings and can include direct links and other fun bits and pieces.

So, what is Tweetsgiving?

Tweetsgiving is a Twitter celebration of gratitude and giving created by Epic Change, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The project aims to demonstrate the power of the social web by raising $10,000 in 48 hours to build a classroom in Tanzania.

While the campaign was launched and is geared mainly towards collecting messages of gratitude from Twitter users, you don’t need have a Twitter account to donate. Just go to tweetsgiving.org and click on the ChipIn widget (uses PayPal).

To date 5610.06$ has been collected. Half-way through the campaign and just a little over half-way to the goal.  Tweetsgiving ends at noon on Nov 28th.  What are you waiting for?

If you’re the type who needs to get something in return – and foreigners such as Canadians won’t be able to claim any charitable donation tax deductions from donating to US based charities – you can purchase something from the Epic Change store. Every purchase will add one or more bricks to the tally.

Learn More

• TomWatson; CauseWired – A Happy ‘TweetsGiving’
• buzzmarketing daily – Put the “giving” back in Thanksgiving!

Highlight of my day yesterday?  Tabz retweeted my Tweetsgiving message.

Today in a phenomenal example of the power of social media, Epic Change launched a Twitter campaign outlined at http://tweetsgiving.org. Asking people to Twitter about what they are thankful for and to share the wealth by donating whatever they could to help build a school in Tanzania. In 48 hours they are hoping to raise re required 10,000$ one 10$ brick at a time. Twitter members are offered an opportunity to include one 140 character message of thanks to be written on their bricks. When I first learned of the fundraiser approximately 1800$ had been raised. When I checked the site at dinner time they’d raised 3000$. It certainly looks encouraging. I have my brick. Have you bought yours?

I’m not a fan of getting up in the morning, looking outside, and seeing nothing but darkness.  I’m even less thrilled when I leave my windowless office each evening and stumble to the parking garage in darkness.  This is the farthest north I’ve ever lived and I’m still not used to the extremely short days during the winter.

Obviously I do not suffer from this problem in the reverse.  I love the summer.  I’m thrilled when the sun comes up at 0 dark 30 in the morning and goes down sometime around 11pm in the evening. I like sitting out on the back porch with a good book and a beer at 9:30pm and not need lights to read by.

Or blankets to snuggle under.

Along with the dark comes the cold. Now that lizard boy is home the house should be warmer. While I might shiver and suffer in a colder house – throwing sweater after sweater on to keep warm – Drew just can’t manage to stay warm enough if the house temp is set to 16C.  He needs it to be a balmy 18C at least.  Call it my green act of the winter.  Low heat settings.

The sad thing about our temperature setting is that 16C is really nice on a spring day.  Unfortunately, thanks to the ambient temperature outside, it doesn’t do too much to keep the chill off in winter.

It’s not even officially winter yet and I’m already pining for spring.  This does not bode well for my sanity in the upcoming months.