The Elephant Project

Back in September I wrote about the Gumpathon, the British and U.S. Marines running across the country to raise money for wounded veterans. They completed their run on Veterans Day, but you can still make a donation. Meanwhile, I thought I'd highlight another worthy effort with a post.

The Elephant Project is raising money and awareness for the fight against Alzheimer's disease. I learned of this through Twitter, although I don't remember how I started following them (which, I guess, is ironic -- once again, paging Alanis Morissette). The elephant is their symbol because of the old saying that elephants never forget. So they have celebrities pose for photos while holding an elephant beanie baby. A package including an 8x10 photo, an autographed card and an elephant beanie baby is then auctioned off, with proceeds going to the Alzheimer's Association. (This is National Alzheimer's Awareness Month, by the way.)

I refer to the Elephant Project as "they" and "them" in the paragraph above, but that's sort of misleading. One of the main reasons I wanted to write this was because of this tweet from last month:

  

From what I can tell from the About page at the website, this kid is doing much of the work on this by himself, while going to school and working at his job. He totally puts me (and perhaps some of you) to shame. So, if your financial situation allows, help this guy out, either with a donation or a $10 purchase of a 5x7 photo of one of the famous people.

Links to the Elephant Project: website, Twitter and Facebook.

Follow These Celebs On Twitter, Everyone!

Last weekend I blogged about the Gumpathon -- the British and American Marines running across America to raise funds for injured soldiers from both countries. After I wrote that post, I had an idea. I follow a number of famous people on Twitter -- some more famous than others, obviously -- and have seen times when they retweeted messages from their followers. Sometimes it's just a funny comment, sometimes they're congratulations on some accomplishment (hit record, movie, etc.), sometimes they're requests for birthday greetings, and of course, sometimes they're posts with a cause.

So I decided to tweet a number of these people I follow with this request: "Can you pls RT this link about @TheGumpathon? They're raising $$ for injured soldiers. Thanks!" I was going to do it with every celebrity I follow, but cut the list down somewhat. Some of the cuts were because either they haven't been active on Twitter lately, or at all. The few celebs that actually follow me back I also left off the list, since they would have had my link already in their timeline (although I have no expectations that they'd actually click on it). Other choices were just arbitrary. I ended up with a total of 50 Twitter accounts, and by late Sunday night I sent out all 50 tweets (and two or three others to non-celeb accounts as well).

My request upset John Mayer so much that he quit Twitter.

A Milestone Post, A Worthy Cause, An Important Day

Yesterday I noticed on my Blogger dashboard that my next post on this blog would be post number 500. I thought that such a milestone ought to be about something really important instead of the mostly trivial stuff I normally write about. I asked for suggestions on a Twitter/Facebook update. I got none. Fortunately, (insert name/title of your preferred deity or deities, or chalk it up to fate) provided inspiration today.

I had just gotten on the bus that runs along Frankford Avenue near my house. There was a bit of a commotion. The driver commented to another passenger about being stuck in the outer lane. There were a few cars and vans driving along the other lane, moving more slowly than the rest of the traffic. As the bus driver finally managed to pass the clog, I noticed two vehicles in particular -- with a red, white and blue motif and a lot of text, with one word in the largest font standing out: GUMPATHON. In between them was a man in what seemed to be a wheelchair/bicycle hybrid. His legs were still -- it was his arms "pedaling" the handlebars that powered his ride. Curious, I jumped out of the bus a minute later, ahead of the caravan, and captured some video. (You don't hear sound because of the YouTube sound issue I previously ranted about, so you can't hear the man give me a shout in response to my thumbs-up gesture as he passed.)



So, what is the Gumpathon?