Thursday, June 2, 2011

Let's Plant A Forest!


Hello. For those that are new, welcome to my blog. Over the last two weeks, I’ve on been blogging on a different topic (act) every day, see the May 16th entry. My topics (acts) come from Patrick Lindsay’s book It’s Never Too Late… 172 Simple Acts To Change Your Life.

Act 18:

“It’s never too late… To Plant A Tree

Think of it as putting something back into the earth. Most of the time we take from it. Help redress the balance. Plant a new life. Nurture it. Take pleasure in watching it grow. After you plany one, you’ll want to plant more. Nurture them. Encourage others to do the same.” – Patrick Lindsay

Quote in book: “Nature never did betray the heard that loved her” ~ William Wordsworth

What an amazing idea! I don’t have a yard or any place to plant anything, but I still wanted to fulfill today’s act. I, of course, consulted The ORACLE (internet). The ORACLE pointed me to www.plantabillion.org. The Nature Conservancy is trying to plant 1 billion trees in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil by 2015. Their motto: One Dollar. One Tree. One Planet. For every dollar that’s donated on their site, they will plant a tree. How awesome is that? Right now they are a little over $9.4M – That’s less than 1%!!! This project started in 2008. They have a long way to go.

I wanted to help! So, I went to the website and donated $50. It took me less than 5 min. Here’s my proof!


That’s 50 trees, but I want to do more and want to give everyone else a chance to help out… So, being goal-oriented… I came up w/ an idea.

My pledge to everyone: For every $10 donated to The Nature Conservancy for their Plant A Billion Trees project, I will donate $5, up to $1000.

My Goal: To get 200 people to plant 10 trees or hit $2000. There's a $10 minimum. I had a different plan if they let you donate $1. That's 2000 trees. Then if you add my $1000, that's 3000 trees! I think that 3000 trees makes a decent size forest, right?

Deadline: I’m setting the deadline for my semi-matching extra donation to Father’s Day, June 19, 2011! This is my gift to my dearly departed father. I think he’d want me to do something good to honor him.

How to get to 3000: I will post the donation link to my Facebook & twitter pages and email everyone I know. I’m hoping I will inspire some of my friends to ask their friends to get me to 3000, because I won’t get there w/out help!!

Please help me out by forwarding to all your friends and family! Every dollar and person helps!

How to donate: I started a fundraising page on the site. Please go there and donate money. http://support.nature.org/goto/lilfaust

Leave me a comment in the guest book (even if you leave a fake name), so I can count you in the march to the extra $1000.

As soon as Father’s day comes, I’ll come back and update this page to see how much we got. I know $10 is a lot, but just think... it's 10 trees and it's tax deductible! 200 people seems like a pipe dream considering I know the economy has hit everyone hard, but you gotta dream big! I’ll be happy if we get half that (or even 1/4 that). =) Let's try anyway!

Note: If you want to actually plant a tree instead of donating money, let me know by contacting me or making a comment to this blog and I’ll count that as 5 people or $50 and donate $25 for you instead of just $5!

Go out there. Plant a tree. Hug a tree! I did.

Yes, that's me hugging a tree. Thanks to E. Russell for taking this pic of me being a tree hugger! =)

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