Our boy in Africa

Charity in Second Life is very much in the air today as we’re about to see the opening of the 2010 RFL Clothing Fair.  With all this activity I was reminded that I’m overdue an update on our own charity.  Here at DollyRock we’ve been sponsoring a child in Kenya via Plan International for almost 2 years.  Contributions are collected at the little Gratis store in the mall outside the main store and any shortfall at the end of the month is made up by DollyRock.  So even if you haven’t donated directly if you’ve ever bought anything at DollyRock you’re still sharing the love!

If you’ve never heard of Plan, it’s an international charity (M. Linden recently stated that over 60% of SL residents are not in the US so I feel its important to be aware of  our global community when we’re choosing charities).  It’s a humanitarian, child-focused development organisation with no religious, political or governmental affiliations.

We are paying £12 a month (approx. $24 USD or 6700L) to help fund projects in this impovrished community.

The child that we sponsor is Mark, who is 7 years old and lives in the Homabay region of Kenya which borders Tanzania. He lives with his Mum, Dad and older brother, Michael in a mud and sticks house with a corrugated metal roof. He attends preschool which is situated less than 30 minutes away but the nearest health facility is more than two hours away. The family obtain water from an open community well.  Plan does not encourage specific information or photographs of sponsored children to be shared on web pages but if you would like more information please don’t hesitate to contact me, Cherry Cheevers, inworld or email me at cherry@dollyrock.co.uk

I’ve put more information about Mark at the donation point.   Thank you so much for helping 

How much did we raise?

Okay here are all the details of our Haiti appeal at DollyRock.  As you can see from the countdown below (started at 1,000 and counted down) we sold 147 gowns in total!  THANK YOU!!  Plus I had two people who donated the cost of the gown without actually buying, so that make a grand total of 149.

149 gowns x 200L =  $29,800L  (woohoo!)

We like round figures at DollyRock, so I raided the DollyRock coffers and rounded it up to 40,000L.

I cashed that out at XStreet and they gave me 142.04 US Dollars, I transferred that to PayPal minus the fee of 1 dollar, which gave a total of 141.04 US dollars, which as you can see below made the conversion to UK pounds in the sum of £85.31.

Now £85.31 seemed a strange sum to donate, so I kicked DollyRock again and rounded it to a more satsifactory £100.  We totally smashed the original target of £25 so please feel proud of yourselves.   DollyRock Divas rock!!

I took a screenshot of the donation which you can see here: www.justgiving.com/dollyrock

I was going to write something corny and smaltzy now … but just thanks   Any questions at all about the DollyRock appeal please don’t hesitate to contact me, Cherry Cheevers, inworld or leave a msg here.  I’m going to collapse in a corner now, exhausted after all that maths!

Last push for DollyRock Haiti appeal

No apologies for mentioning the Haiti appeal again, we’re all watching the heartbreaking news with despair.   This week you’ve bought over 100 gowns and today is the very last day as I’m keen to get the money sent off.   So if you haven’t got yours yet (or even if you have) please come down and buy one.  It’s only 200L which is a bargain for probably one of the biggest dresses you’ll ever own..hehe.  All the details of how I’ve made this collection as transparent as possible can be seen here DollyRock Haiti Appeal.    I’ll get my calculator out in the morning and post the final figures on this blog.  Thank you so much for your support.  DR Divas are the best!

Haiti Appeal

{Edit}  This blog post relates to an appeal for Haiti within the virtual world of Second Life.  We raised £100 that was donated to the Red Cross and our particular appeal is now closed.  If you’ve found this site via a search engine and are looking to donate to the Haiti appeal please visit the Red Cross here: http://www.redcross.org.uk/

I’m sure we’ve all been horrified to see the scenes coming out of Haiti and I know everyone wants to help.   There are lots of avenues to donate and here at DollyRock we want to do our part.  I know charity giving is fraught with difficulties in Second Life with trust being much more of an issue given the anonymous nature of our virtual community.  So, in an effort to be as transparent as possible here’s the plan:  I’ve made this special gown, it will only be available for a week and a day, until Sunday 24th January, midnight SLT.  This is a real Scarlet O’Hara style ball gown and the pics really don’t do it justice…so if you want to be the belle of the ball this one is for you.  I’ve put in it a limited edition box but its only limited by time..the counter on the box will allow me to calculate how many have been sold by next Sunday.  I’ll take the figure, times it by 200L, cashout that amount into real money and donate to the Red Cross via the Just Giving site – you can see our page here:

http://www.justgiving.com/dollyrock

Of course you can also donate directly on that site if you don’t want to buy the gown.  Next Sunday you can drop down to DollyRock at midnight to see how many have sold and I’ll also post a pic on the blog – then scoot over to the web page where you’ll be able to see how much I donated.

The gown is only 200L and every single linden will be donated to the Haiti appeal.  What are you waiting for?  It’s at the New section of the main store.

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