Haitian Relief Effort - Comment to Raise Funds

• 

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.
-- John Donne

FINAL TALLY: February 1st, 2009: You left 1750 comments on this blog in the last 18 days, raising a total of $17,500 for Haiti Relief. Thank you so much to everyone who participated by commenting, linking, tweeting, retweeting and getting the word out.
As soon as they are made available to me, I will post the donation receipts. Thank you again.


UPDATE Days 1-15: 12am GMT 1/29 - 1466 comments = $14,660. Thank you! 3 days left.

UPDATE Days 1-12: 10:30pm GMT 1/25 - 1365 comments = $13,650. Thank you.

UPDATE Days 1-9: 12am GMT 1/23 - 1155 comments = $11,550. Thank you.

UPDATE Days 1-6: 12am GMT 1/20 - 1075 comments = $10,750. Thank you.

UPDATE Days 1-3: 12am GMT 1/17 - So far you have left 691 comments = $6910 raised. Thank you.

UPDATE: I'm getting a lot of questions via email about the legitimacy of this effort, so let me say a few things:

• After checking with the sponsor to be sure, I can say that the sponsor is a Gulf State embassy here in London. They do not wish to be named as they do not want any further solicitations from unknown parties.
• They are already donating money to Haiti but on a scale that has nothing to do with this small effort. This, even if I had the kind of traffic that The Pioneer Woman has, represents pocket change to them and it is for a good cause so they are happy to do it.
• You do not need to thank me, it's not my money, it's theirs. You are welcome to leave a comment with anything else in it other than a thank you to me. 
  
• If you have something nasty to say, I'd rather you left it in a comment than emailed me with it as your comment will still raise $10.
  

This is not the most auspicious way to get back to blogging after a mini-hiatus, but unless you live under a rock (and obviously you don't because you're reading this), you know the eyes of the world are turned toward Haiti at this very moment and the right thing to do is not to just post about something delicious I made or ate, but to use whatever opportunity I might have to help in some way. So here goes my way of helping:
If you are a food blog reader, you already know what Menu for Hope is and perhaps saw my participating bid item, or even bid on it, a few weeks ago. While it is a condition of my agreement with the organization that graciously donated the Kenwood Mixer (on very short notice and which would actually have been happy to donate something bigger if they'd had more notice) that I not name it, this same organization has very generously agreed to make a donation to Haiti Relief through this blog. So, while I unfortunately cannot name this organization other than to say that it is a government mission, I can extend their very generous offer for you folks to help me help the Haiti Relief effort.

For every comment that is left on my blog between now and January 31st, $10 will be donated to the purchase of essential supplies such as blankets, food, water, medical supplies etc... I am fortunate that as the donating party is a government mission, they can organize the prompt purchase and, more importantly, the actual dispatch and arrival of these goods to Haiti.
The number of comments you leave will be added up every 3 days and the corresponding amount will be put toward the purchase of the goods. In case you're wondering, look around, I don't have any kind of advertising on this blog so I don't benefit from any traffic this site gets.

It doesn't matter where you leave the comment, it can be on the first post I ever wrote, I will simply add up the comments I get in my email and tally those up. Just to clarify since I've been asked this a few times already, YOU MAY LEAVE ONE COMMENT PER POST and YOU MAY COMMENT ON AS MANY POSTS AS YOU LIKE ON THIS BLOG, but you may not make several comments on the same post, otherwise they regard that as the same thing as if I commented on my own posts a bunch of times. And to answer someone's question in the comments, as a government mission they are already making their own donation to the effort on a governmental level, this is just a cherry on the proverbial cake because I have a good relationship with them thanks to my husband.

So again, to be clear: You do not have to comment only on the most recent post - the sponsor will take into account new comments left on ANY of my posts before January 31st. In fact, the only restriction is that you may not leave multiple comments on the same post (as these will be disregarded for donation purposes).

If you don't want to participate here, you can always make a donation to a charitable organization such as Doctors Without Borders or a less well-known organization called Partners in Health which has been working in Haiti for over 20 years.
Or you can pick another organization (US readers) from this list put together by CharityWatch.org of the top legitimate charitable organizations involved in the Haitian Relief Effort.

For similar efforts, please visit these other blogs if you haven't already and leave a comment: it's so easy and will help someone over there, and if you can, please spread the word:

Ree of The Pioneer Woman

Alice of Savory Sweet Life

Michelle of Thursday Night Smackdown

Amy of Amy Leavitt Photography

Pam of The Cooking Ninja

Erin at $5 Dinners

Karen of Does that make sense?

May of Mayk all day every day.

Crystal of Money Saving Mom

Gaby of What's Gaby Cooking? 

A.C Parker of Feeding the Saints
 

Thank you.