Monday, December 17, 2012

Project for Awesome

Today is the Project for Awesome. Project for awesome is an annual event, run by the vlogbrothers on YouTube. All year, people have been donating money here. Every year, on December 17, vloggers take over YouTube and make a video about a particular charity that they feel strongly about. Then, the YouTube community goes to the website (linked under "here" a couple of sentences earlier) and votes on what they think is the "best" non-profit organization. The top 5 non-profits get 20% of the money that was raised throughout this year.
I think that it's an awesome thing. I like how people are reducing worldsuck (vlogbrothers term for the amount of suck in the world). Many famous YouTubers (or at least the ones I watch) make videos about their charities, and even everyday people make videos for their favorite charities. John Green of the vlogbrothers (an amazing author who wrote The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, and An Abundance of Katherines-only recommended for highschoolers and up) made a video for Save the Children, a program that provides children who live in poverty with medical aid, education, clean water etc. WheezyWaiter made a video supporting water.org, which provides impoverished places with clean water.
I personally don't have a favorite charity or anything. I think giving to these places is a good thing in general, and usually do so through school. Though the thing that I don't like about the school fundraising is that there is pressure to donate or to participate. Yes, it does produce more money that way, but at the same time, I believe that giving to charity should be done from the heart, and not just because you don't want to be that one person who didn't donate. Also, it feels better to know that you gave because you cared.
I'm just trying to raise awareness for what I think is a really cool thing. If you're interested, there are a bunch of links up there that you can click to get introduced to the Project for Awesome.

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