Pittsburgh Walk for Farm Animals 2011

I am so excited to be participating in raising funds for the 2nd Annual Pittsburgh Walk for Farm Animals 2011 next month! On Saturday, October 1st, Pittsburgh will host its second Walk for Farm Animals to support the lifesaving rescue, education and advocacy work of Farm Sanctuary! Please help me reach my fundraising goal of $300! Any amount donated, whether $1 or $100, is hugely helpful. Visit my fundraising page or look for the widget on my blog sidebar to the right to contribute. Any amount is welcome! :)

For 25 years, Farm Sanctuary has relied on the Walk for Farm Animals to support its life-saving mission to protect farm animals from cruelty, inspire change in the way society views and treats farm animals, and promote compassion. The Walk for Farm Animals takes place annually in more than 75 cities across the United States and Canada to celebrate and promote compassion for farm animals and raise funds to enable Farm Sanctuary to continue its vital work. Last year, Pittsburgh was the 6th BIGGEST WALK ON THE CONTINENT, had 150 walkers and raised over $13,000! This year, our goal is to have 300 walkers and raise $30,000. Please help us move closer to the #1 spot this year!

Our local Walk coordinator, Kim Piper of Sunstone Soap, states, "Our goal is to walk together as a compassionate community while we have fun, raise money and help better the world for all beings!" Please join us! All members of the community (regardless of dietary lifestyle- non-vegans and non-vegetarians are absolutely included) with a love for animals and a desire to end their needless suffering at the hands of factory farms are invited to walk, volunteer, donate, or help in some way.

How You Can Help:

* Sponsor me in my fundraising efforts as part of Pittsburgh's Walk, donating what you can to help me reach my goal of $300! All donations go directly to Farm Sanctuary! Visit my fundraising page via this link or via the widget on my blog sidebar.

* Register to walk in Pittsburgh or your own city!

* If you are unable to walk, register to "Sleep In" as a Virtual Walker!

* Donate a vegan food item to our post-Walk picnic! Please contact me to arrange this.

* Donate a gift card, retail item, or handmade good to our "Moopon" sale! Please contact me to arrange this.

* Spread the word about the Walk, Farm Sanctuary, and the plight of abused and neglected farm animals!


Thanks so much for your support!

Pittsburgh Walk for Farm Animals 2010!

I am thrilled to be part of the upcoming Pittsburgh Walk for Farm Animals 2010 next month! On Saturday, October 2nd, Pittsburgh will host its very first Walk for Farm Animals to support the lifesaving rescue, education and advocacy work of Farm Sanctuary! This event takes place annually in more than 75 cities across the United States and Canada to celebrate and promote compassion for farm animals and raise funds to enable Farm Sanctuary to continue its vital work. One of the amazing walk organizers, Kim Piper of Sunstone Soap, states, "Our goal is to walk together as a compassionate community while we have fun, raise money and help better the world for all beings!"

Please consider walking with us! Everyone compassionate about animal welfare is invited, and non-vegans and non-vegetarians are absolutely welcome! You can walk solo, create your own team, or join my team called "Team Craftastic." :) When you go to register for Pittsburgh's walk, you will be given the option of choosing a team. Register here by clicking ‘Get Started’ & selecting the Pittsburgh Walk. Advance registration is only $15 and includes a t-shirt. Or visit my page and follow the registration links. I hope you'll join me!



You can also help by sponsoring me in the walk. Any amount donated, whether $1 or $100, is hugely helpful. Visit my fundraising page or look for the widget on my left blog sidebar to contribute!

If you would rather, you can also donate by sending to me directly via PayPal- let me know if you'd like my email address for that.

You can also donate a prize for the event, whether handmade, a gift certificate, or other item. Contact me to arrange this.

GIVEAWAY ALERT: Every fan of my Facebook Fan Page who donates toward the Walk for Farm Animals via my fundraising page will be entered in a giveaway to win two 5x7(ish) art prints of your choice! Yay!

Just donating any amount gets you one entry. Every $10 donated gets you another entry. So a donation of $10, for instance, would mean one entry for donating and one entry for $10 and so on. :) Just "like" my Facebook page and comment there to let me know you've donated!
ANY AMOUNT IS WELCOME! :)

Thanks so much for your support!

A Dollar for Peace!

Every year there are millions of people who go with little to no food, suffering from hunger, and often malnutrition as a result. In a struggling world economy, the numbers continue to grow. There are 25,000 people every day who die from hunger-related causes. But hunger not only robs the body of the nutrients it needs to function well, but also marginalizes and disempowers people. Run entirely by volunteers, Food Not Bombs activists believe having basic needs like hunger met is a right, not a privilege.

Food Not Bombs, my charity for December (10% of all sales in my shop go directly to them), is founded on the belief that "no one should be without food in a world so richly provided with land, sun, and human ingenuity" and that "the world produces enough food to feed everyone, if distributed equally." The cause stands up for the belief that money spent on sustaining global war and violence would be better spent on sustaining the basic needs of humanity, and seeks to both feed the hungry and support and sustain social movements that empower people to fight for justice.


Food Not Bombs' A Dollar for Peace campaign centers around being able to provide about 4 meals for as little as $1.00. They have roughly 400 chapters around the world (new ones sprout up every day) that provide free healthy, sustainable vegetarian and vegan meals weekly meals in over 1,000 cities around the world to people who would otherwise not have any or adequate food. They often utilize food that would otherwise have been thrown away as waste by grocers and bakeries to nourish the homeless and hungry, day care centers, and families of workers on strike. Through providing food for people, they are making sure those people are taken care of in some small way.

"No consideration of money, no demand for profit, should stand in the way of any hungry or malnourished child or any adult in need," according to Food Not Bombs. They want to make this message clear by setting up to distribute meals in very visible places. Yet they do much more than nourish the hungry, also seeking to empower and sustain progessive movements. Their meals also feed people at important social justice events around the globe like peace rallies, environmental and animal rights demonstrations, striking auto workers in Korea, and Peace Camps on the West bank of Palestine. In addition to their efforts to end hunger and support peace, Food Not Bombs has started animal shelters, planted community gardens, and organized programs like Homes Not Jails to house the homeless. Every dollar contributed to A Dollar for Peace will go directly towards ending hunger, poverty and war.

This year, EtsyVeg is supporting the Dollars for Peace program through a week long promotional event in which 10% of all sales made in participating shops will be donated to Food Not Bombs' Dollar for Peace campaign! For just one dollar you can help build a world based on peace and justice. We invite you to learn more about this great program and ways you can help by visiting their website.

Please support our effort to raise funds for this amazing organization by shopping handmade for the holidays with participating EtsyVeg shops!

Silentlotus Creations: Charity of the Month!

Every month, my Etsy shop SilentLotus Creations donates 10% of sales to a cause related to animals, marginalized populations, human rights, or peace and justice. August' profits from sales of my handcrafted jewelry and original art will be donated to It's Meow or Never Animal Rescue and Sanctuary. The sanctuary is a non-profit, no-kill animal shelter that rescues animals in immediate danger from Animal Control, police departments, animal shelters that euthanize, and other situations.

It's Meow or Never not only runs an almost always full shelter that cares for and adopts out pets needing a new forever home, they also fund spaying/neutering and vaccinations, feed and shelter feral cats, and offer helpful resources to pet owners and animal advocates. Fund raising for much needed land and a new adoption/sanctuary facility is also in the works. 100% of donations is spent on caring for rescued animals, and the rest is personally funded by founders Michael and Madonna.

Their currently-full shelter not only accepts monetary donations (auto donations accepted as well)- supporters can sponsor an animal or make purchases of It's Meow or Never's wishlist items, made easy with the click of a PayPal button right on their site! Handcrafted pet items like dog biscuits and kitty beds made by sanctuary volunteers are available in exchange for a donation. Help also comes from It's Meow or Never's Etsy shop, where all profits go toward shelter operation costs! Visit their blog for more info, and to meet some of the sanctuary's animals.

Plant a Billion Trees: $1=1 TREE

This month, 10% of profits from my Etsy shop, SilentLotus Creations, will be donated to an organization I learned of from Belinda of viceroyrose, a fellow EtsyVeg member who donates 100% of her shop revenue to The Nature Convervancy's "Plant a Billion Trees" project. This massive reforestation effort seeks to restore 2.5 million acres of land and plant 1 billion trees in Brazil's Atlantic Forest over the next 7 years. Planting one tree for every $1 US donated, the project's success will fight global climate change by removing 10 million tons of carbon dioxide from the earth every year, the equivalent of removing 2 million cars from the roads!



Another opportunity to support a worthy cause by shopping at SilentLotus Creations is by purchasing a copy of Cooking With Compassion, a vegan cookzine that benefits Peaceful Prairie, a sanctuary for abused and neglected farm animals.

Could you ask for a better excuse for shopping? Give back while supporting handmade and an indpendent artisan! :)