I'm posting this early because a) I'll be traveling soon, and b) I'm ready to...

Okay folks, you may or may not be aware of Donors Choose. This is a very cool charitable organization where K-12 teachers (generally from public schools in very impoverished areas) can submit requests for things they need to better teach their students. Requests range from sophisticated equipment, through basic school supplies, down to chairs (yes, simple chairs!) and even food (one in seven in the US live below the poverty line - there are a lot of hungry kids). One can argue ad infinitum about whether or not it's an individual's responsibility to help provide such things, but that's not what this is about. Clearly the education system in this country is broken - school systems can't provide some of the most basic things (chairs for eff's sake!). Society (that's you!) needs to step up.

Starting October 10 and running for a month there's this Science Bloggers for Students Challenge running. A bunch of science blog collectives, including LabSpaces, plus some individual bloggers are competing to see who can raise the most for Donors Choose. The prize? A lot of kids helped. Many of the bloggers here at LabSpaces have set up their own Donors Choose donation pages. Mine is over there on the right in the "Awesome Stuff" box. See it? It's blue and white with some green. Having trouble finding it? The link is also at the bottom of this post.

UPDATE: Donors Choose has just announced that HP will be doubling all donations to the Science Bloggers for Students Challenge up to a total of $50,000. Donate now and double your impact!

On each of these donation pages you'll find the projects we're sponsoring. Please give. Since this is a science blogging collective and it's a science bloggers challenge, we're focusing on raising money for science-related projects. Please give. Donors Choose makes it easy - they have a secure web site that can handle credit cards and Paypal donations. Please give. It doesn't have to be much - it can be as little as $1! You know that venti caramel half-caf mocha, extra-hot with extra whipped cream you have each day? Save yourself the fat and calories and give the $5 instead. How about that daily trip to the vending machine? You could skip that. Or buying lunch each day? Brown-bag it for once. Think how good you'll feel. You'll lose weight and help kids! Please give.

Not convinced? Spend five minutes poking around the Donors Choose site. If you're not moved to help then, well, I guess you're pretty much heartless. Or a deep-sea sponge.

Odyssey's Donors Choose Donation Page:

http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/viewChallenge.html?id=70898&utm_source=BC08&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=GP&utm_campaign=70898&max=50