Alton Brown fans, let's unite for good causes

Besides teaching us a lot about food, food science and many things culinary, Alton Brown has brought awareness to several causes. Most notably his current focus on sustainable seafood has brought awareness, for me at least, to Seafood Watch and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Along with support for this organization, AB also has lent his name and support to Heifer International.

As a result of learning more about Monterey Bay Aquarium and Seafood Watch, I signed up for their newsletters to get important information about what they are doing. A few days ago their newsletter had an article about rescued sea otter pups, and being the otter lover that I am, I wanted to help the Aquarium with a donation. Additionally when the Gulf oil spill was at its worse, the Aquarium dispatched assistance to the area.

The other charity AB likes a lot, Heifer International, also is active with assisting people effected by disasters. Heifer is, and has been, helping people in Haiti recover from the January earthquake. Even this week, nearly 9 months later, a team from the organization is going to Haiti to look over the country and recovery.

All of this made me want to offer my own help. Of course, I could simply send a small amount of money to both of these great organizations and know this would be appreciated and needed. But what if I could do more?

A dear, close friend told me about a way that could very well bring more power to my initial amount. She told me about a group of fans who used a fansite to hold a fundraiser for their celebrity's favorite charity as a way to honor his birthday. By bringing together a lot of other people who shared a similar interest, they raised a good deal of money for a great cause.

What a perfect thing!

So the wheels turned and my friend and I thought a fundraiser of some sort for this site would be a great way to take my amount and pair it was others who may want to contribute to the causes as well.

Although I missed AB's birthday, I thought about just taking the amount raised and contributing it on behalf his fans or in his behalf. I'm open for suggestions on the final way to present the amount.

What we will be doing is to take final the amount and splitting it in half. 50% to Seafood Watch and 50% to Heifer International.

My promises for the fundraiser.

1. All of the money, minus the Paypal fees, will go to both organizations. Paypal takes 2.9% of the total transferred plus 30 cents for each transaction. Here is a nifty Paypal calculator to work out the fees. I have worked out a common few amount totals that one may wish to donate:
$10 -- $10.61
$25 -- $26.06
$50 -- $ 51.80
$100 -- $103.30

You don't have to calculate the fees in the amount, just want everyone to be aware that Paypal will take some of the total!

2. I will post/tweet/update via Facebook on the progress. Plus have a widget displayed to let everyone know what's going on.

I will get it started, or make the kickoff (to honor the start of football season! yay!) donation of $100 (plus the Paypal fees). With the pot primed, the fundraiser is open for two months. At the end, I make a big post with the final total and thanks to everyone (if don't want to be on the list, tell me).

If you've never used a Chipin donation before, in the part that says unit price, add the amount there.

If you can't make a big donation, don't worry any amount will help. Also, placing the widget below on websites, or tweet, or blog, or on Facebook or anywhere online linking back to this post will help raise awareness, so please to that too!

Any questions about the fundraiser email me at lisa@allaboutalton.com


If you don't want to contribute to the Seafood Watch/Heifer International projects (or want to do another good deed!), perhaps you would consider a small donation to help a sweet little puppy. I'm also trying to help out this little guy who needs a heart operation. His name is Birkley and his foster parents need help raising money to get the money for the operation.

It would mean a lot to me if some of you could help him too. You can read about him at Little Victories' website. Plus AB is a dog lover too!

If anyone would like to put his story on Twitter, Facebook, blogs that would help too!

Thanks for whatever you can do! OXOX everyone!