We Are At It Again!!

IT'S HOLIDAY TIME!!

Unfortunately due to my being ill, this year I couldn't go whole hog into a holiday project but we do of course need to have SOMETHING special going on :)

How about handwritten letters from Santa?

If you have or know a little one who would simply fall over if they got a special letter in the mail listen up!

We are offering to mail your little person (or even big person who just needs a holiday hug) a letter from Santa (or any other holiday figure, just let us know!). Letters will be handwritten on Christmas stationary and completely personalized!

Do they...

Love Batman?
Get scared of the dark?
Want to be a Doctor?
Get good grades?

We will include it!

Interested? Just shoot us a message!

Best part? This is free! Our gift to you for supporting us!

Tell your friends and lets get these letters flying!

*requests must be made before December 1st so we can get them out in time.

*The provided address for the letter will not be used for anything other than these letters.

*multiple kids? No problem! Each child will get their own letter in the envelope!

Happy Holidays from

The 5 Dollar Project.

P.S. This is worldwide. No one is left out! Got a far away niece or grandson? We got it covered!

Pennies From Heaven

April 16th my beautiful friend Melissa turns 31. You might know Melissa from our event 50 Teens 4 Christmas or FoodLove or her street ministry or her amazing cakes or or or one of the other amazing things she does for our community.

We want your help to celebrate her awesomeness so I'm introducing "PENNIES FROM HEAVEN".

With the budget announcement that our old friend the penny is about to become obsolete I think we need to say goodbye in style. 5 Dollar Project style.

Our goal is to collect one penny for every day Melissa has been on this planet and one penny for every day FoodLove has been in existence.

To save you the math headache, that is 12,195 pennies or $121.95.

In true 5 Dollar fashion, it's not a lot of money. We know though that Melissa can turn every penny into something worth a fortune.

So here we go, to donate you can do one of the following -

Find me, hand me pennies. Easy right?

Donate via PayPal or email money transfer to the5dollarproject@gmail.com

Donate directly to Melissa
Via PayPal: foodlovekw@gmail.com
Via email money transfer: bourbonbaker@gmail.com
(make sure if you donate directly to Melissa you let us know so we can update the tally!)

This is a great project for kids especially since even 1 of their precious pennies will go a long way. Philanthropy isn't about how much you donate, but why.

For more information about FoodLove visit www.foodlovekw.ca!

If your group or school wants to be involved I would love to come talk to them about how pennies change lives. Or if your business or group wants a Pennies From Heaven jar please contact me! The5dollarproject@gmail.com

#50 Teens Thanks YOU!

It feels like just yesterday our project started and now its done. The event was amazing and went off without a hitch. The kids were thrilled and spoiled. We laughed, we cried, we worked our asses off. With your tremendous support we did it and we can't thank you enough. We can however celebrate our successful event with a wrap-up party. If you were involved, encouraged us, donated, thought about us, retweeted us or just want to know what we did we invite you to come celebrate with us January 9th, 2012. All the details can be found here http://guestlistapp.com/events/83397. We are so proud of what we accomplished and can't wait to share it with you.

On a personal note, I am completely indebted to my partner Melissa for pushing her vision forward and letting me be a part of it. This is only the beginning.

I encourage you to continue to donate to projects like 5 Dollar Project and Food Love so we can continue to work towards a better world for all of us. Kindness is free and multiplies every time it is given away. Give freely of your time and resources and the world will be a better place.

Its here...

3 months ago this project started out as a simple way to make people smile. In such a short time we have evolved into so much more and today our biggest project comes to fruition. All the sleepless nights, tears, heartaches, joy, love and brainsplosions have become the beautiful #50teens4Christmas.

I give this beautiful project full credit for the amazing turn my life has taken. I've seen humanity at its best, I met the woman who shares the other half of my soul, I've seen ordinary people do the extraordinary, I've felt support like i have never felt, I've fallen in love.

Today when I dress my beautiful daughter for school, I can do so knowing that she will grow up in a better world. That all the missed good night kisses will be worth it. That she will be loved and flourish in a world where she can do anything as long as she believes she can. That love, compassion and kindness will keep us safe and warm.

I wish I could personally thank each and every person that made this possible but that is impossible. Hundreds and hundreds of people have made this event happen. The days people simply reached out to tell us what we were doing was worth it are the days I cherish.

Homelessness changed my life. Now, it has also saved my life and given me purpose.

#50teens4Christmas may not touch everyone's life. It may not even touch the lives of all 50 teens involved, but if it opens a door for 1 kid to get off the street then my work and the work of everyone involved will have been worth it.

Love made this event possible. You made this event possible.



"Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous;

love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly;

it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails...But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love."

1 Corinthians 13:4-7,13

My Accidental Life: #FF

From my other blog... It is so important to be thankful. My Accidental Life: #FF: So twitter tends to think of #FF as Follow Friday... Im changing this up a little here today. I was driving along in my van praying it would...

Help

I know I am behind on keeping you all updated on how things are going with 5 Dollar, and all the great things we've been up to. Well thats because we've been busy working hard to make things happen. Right now though, I'm personally asking for help.

As you know, we teamed up with FoodLove KW for #50teens4Christmas and we have been working our butts off. Unfortunately we've run into a few snags along the way and despite wishing, praying and 70 hour weeks, we can't overcome them alone. We need help.

First off, we need to get our information out there to people. We are tweeting and facebooking and emailing and talking ourselves blue but we need more. We need some media attention, we need some big corporations spreading the word within their companies, WE NEED YOU telling people how they can help by donating to #50teens4Christmas.

Secondly, we need money. As crass and abrupt as that may be to say, its truth. Due to some unforeseen sponsor drop outs, venue changes and exorbitant Christmas price mark ups we straight to the point need cash. Now were not asking you to just throw money at us for nothing. We have the amazing donation give-a-way set up with prizes that certainly hold their own. Concert tickets, electronics, gift certificates, toys, one of a kind memorabilia - thousands of dollars worth of prizes and all people need to do is donate... ANYTHING. Were poor, we know money is tight, seriously 5 bucks - 2 bucks - the quarters in the bottom of your purse, we will take it and we will enter you in the draw!

No Paypal? No problem! Cash, cheque, email money transfer - we will take it any way you want to give it to us. We will come to you!

We are personally putting our blood, sweat, tears, man hours and money in to this. We WILL be giving these teens a Christmas. But my god we need help.

WE NEED HELP!

So please, I am begging you. Help us help some kids that have nothing. You can Spread Smiles so easily this year. So easily. Tis the season. Donate HERE

or HERE >

Help Me - Get Rewarded!

So, we're not really a giveaway blog... Well we are a giveaway blog but were not a contest blog. You all know what I mean. That being said... here's a contest with a giveaway!

I hope you have all been reading up on #50Teens4Christmas, and if you have been you know our draw prizes are going up every day. Well we need your help getting people over to donate and get their names in to the giveaway.

So here is the deal!

I spent the weekend at the Ah-Mazing Blissdom Canada conference in Toronto Ontario and one of the amazing sponsors was Fisher Price. They spoiled the ba-jebus out of us. Including the coolest COOLEST thing for any techy parent out there!

The Apptivity Case for iPhones and iPods blew my mind. Open back, insert iDevice, close back and BOOM... No drool, dropping, button pressing damage. This thing is genius! It says 6 months and up... My 3yo thinks it rocks. She is constantly losing my ipod and it makes me bananas! Can't lose it now! And if your kid is older like mine, put the ipod in upside-down and they can hit the home button to change games on their own.


Well, I *may* have somehow ended up with a spare one (thanks Marci!) and I would like you to have it. So here's how it's going down!

2 options:

1 - Tweet using the hashtag #DonateToWin and the link http://tinyurl.com/69orlss about our giveaway

2 - Post below about how you're going to help promote our fundraiser in a creative way

You will get one entry for each entry! You can tweet up to 5 times, so total you can have 6 entries!

Since this prize happens to be in my hot little hands... This is open WORLDWIDE!

Winner will be chosen randomly on the same day as our early bird draw! November 1st!

So... Get promoting!!