Agents of Change

han
The Agents of Change came today, the Riders for Change. They were a lot of fun and it was great meeting them.

We had an event in Santa Monica (at Kelly's place). And I'm tired!

National Museum of the American Indian

Today I renewed my membership in the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. I am a founding member, and gave funds to have it built. Its a pretty cool place.

I have also been working on the Agents of Change LA event for June 6th for Kiva. Plans are coming along great. This will be a bit of a feat, throwing together a fundraiser in a month without a budget. Everything has to be donated. I hope we raise a lot of money, I think they are going to need help getting to their Million Dollar goal.

Oxfam, Agents of Change LA

I renewed my membership in Oxfam today. I first got involved in College, my first year I sort of majored in 'Oxfam' and 'Amnesty'. As well as Vegetarian and SCA, all of which I still do. I guess its more than a phase.

We had our first meeting of Agents of Change-LA where we are planning the June 6th event. Hi Kelly!

Kiva YouTube Videos and Talkshoe

I made my first youtube video. Click here to see it. Its about Kiva of course. I also did my first talkshoe show with Randulo. Its here, under 'Make the World Better in 15 minutes'. I think we took 19.

We discussed Kiva and Kiva friends, Agents of Change.ca, Anysoldier.com, Playful pancake cat toys, and GiveMeaning.com and the project I'm helping with. It was fun, and quite interesting for me to hear myself. I actually can hear my Canadian accent.

Mexico - so close to home.

I made two loans to Mexico today through Kiva, to build up our Mexican portfolio. I just feel that we, as North Americans/Californians, have a special duty to help Mexico. So I loaned today to Griselda Reyes Regalado in Acuna , Mexico so she could buy a cart to sell her Veracruz-style tamales. Right now she sells them from her table in pots.
The second loan was to Dora Alicia Menchaca González in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico who just wants to increase her stock. She sells out each week and can see that if she had more she could sell more. No one else had bid on her loan and its not that new, so lets see how long it takes to fund.

I think I have been influenced in my desire to help Mexico by Agents of Change. And I am still helping them organize the LA event on June 6th. I have also been doing some emailing on YouTube to try to get people to join the Kiva YouTube Contest. So far I got 1 hit! I emailed with her a few times and she made a submission, and we're waiting for it to appear in YouTube. Apparently there is a delay.

Agents of Change

So I heard about Agents of Change on the 24 hour Kiva Talk-a-thon and I checked out their website. They are a group of bikers who have set up a non-profit to support Kiva. They are 'Riding for Change' and thier first big event will be to raise $1,000,000 driving down the West coast from Vancouver to Mexico. The money will be invested perpetually in Kiva loans in Mexico.

So I contacted them, and asked them what they were doing in LA. They don't have a contact here yet (so nothing planned), so I became the contact and am helping to organize the LA event. So far I've sent out a few emails to the Kivaloans yahoo group and the Fairtrade LA group, and have already gotten a few replies with help. I am totally open to comments and suggestions. I've never done this before.

I also posted an idea to several Obama groups, suggesting that people start talk shows for Obama on talkshoe.com. Lets see if that idea takes off. I don't have the time or voice.