Target is donating $3 Million a WEEK?! That blows my mind. I just got this off Facebook:

 "Target gives 5% of its income to communities — over $3 million every week."

I'm not a big Target shopper, but this is something I can get behind.  And users get to VOTE who gets the cash

http://www.facebook.com/target?v=app_74787998079&canvas=true

 

This morning Walk Now for Autism hosted a 5k event in Chicago. Participants gathered donations for Autism Speaks—a nonprofit dedicated to funding medical research, raising public awareness, and bringing hope to those personally affected by autism. Thus far, walkers in the United States and Canada have collectively raised more than $8 million, with Chicago walkers bringing in more than $900 thousand in 2009.

It was a gorgeous day for a family walk along the lake. Participants also had the chance to check out a bike puppet theatre, play in big bright bouncy castles, eat food, watch live entertainment, and bask in that good warm-and-fuzzy feeling you get when you walk for a cause.

Thanks to all of the walkers, volunteers, and organizers who helped to make this year's Walk Now for Autism a success.

Don't fret if you missed this year's walk in Chicago; there are many other ways to get involved. Donate online, organize a team for next year, or check out the calendar for upcoming events in your local region.

 

[Sidenote: Check out my latest guest post, Sports for Good: Photography Can Change the Way We Play, at Collective Lens. Collective Lens is an organization dedicated to promoting social change through photography. You can also use photography to affect social change by entering Play City's Brickfish photo competition. Answer the question, "What do you play for?"  and you could win $500 for your sports-for-good photo.]

Tomorrow is the magical day when bunnies lay eggs and salivating kids search frantically for misplaced chocolate and jelly beans. Parents perform some quick calculations to determine how many deviled eggs they must consume in the next seven days or so, before an overwhelming sulfuric stench begins to rise from the depths of the pink and blue dyed eggshells lining the fridge.

Tonight is both my room mate's birthday party and the night before Easter. As the DJs hooked up the sound system and got their vinyl in order for the night, I ran around our apartment candifying. I hid plastic eggs on window sills, chocolates in flower pots, and a grand-prize giant chocolate bunny in a very special top-secret location.  I can't think of many activities more fun than running around finding candy and dancing like a fool.

Then there are projects to transform the Big Candy Hunt into a force for social good. For the past several years in Nova Scotia, Cadbury teamed up with KidSport to offer an annual Easter egg hunt charity event to fund sports programs for low-income children. Though the hunt will not be offered this year (boo!), KidSport will continue to provide sports activities for less-fortunate kids in Nova Scotia.

A London group known as Solidarity Sports offers an Easter Sports Club in April to give at-risk and disadvantaged children athletic training as well as information about healthy eating habits. [Um, chocolate bunnies are healthy, right?]

Watch footage from last year's Easter Sports Club created by Solidarity Sports:



Other groups are hosting charity Easter egg

Last weekend, I attended the Chiditarod (Urban Iditarod)—Chicago's premier shopping cart race and mobile food drive. Participants form teams, gather non-perishable food items, and race through the city streets to support local food pantry programs.

Seriously, how often do you get to wear green frog suits and pink monkey costumes in public?

Here's some of the ridiculousness that I witnessed at the Chiditarod:

 

* Correction: it was actually the fourth annual Chiditarod. I should'a known from their slick maneuvering and cart manipulation skillz that these crazy kids have many years of experience racing shopping carts :)

Two weeks ago, I made a promise that I'm about to regret: I told a couple of friends that I would join them for a polar bear swim in Lake Michigan on New Year's Day.

Yikes. Today it's 13 degrees in Chicago, and tomorrow probably won't be any better. My basic emergency medical knowledge tells me that a bit of dabbling in hypothermic conditions probably won't kill me. Nonetheless, I'm silently repeating old sayings from my high school white water kayaking instructors, frequently uttered on those bitterly cold days of paddling through New Hampshire river systems in March:

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Pain is weakness leaving the body. That'll put hair on your teeth."

I wonder if hairy teeth still chatter.

To mentally prepare for my arctic plunge, I remind myself about all of the other senseless polar bear swimmers (or martyrs) who continually freeze their butts off to promote good causes.  

Polar bear charity events span from the cold winter waters of Maine to the (artificially chilled with bags of ice) waters of Hawai'i. Cold-water fools—I mean champs—dive in to raise money for myriad causes, such as special Olympics, the domestic violence (DV) movement, animal welfare, and other equally worthy endeavors.

I'll let you know how the swim goes—after my fingers thaw, of course.