March 16th, 2005

Filed under:
The Long View
17 Comments »

I’m Doing the 30-Hour Famine

How many calories did you get today? We got plenty, I expect, but 800 million people didn’t get enough. So, we’re having a little fundraiser around here. We’re going to raise some cash as part of the 30-Hour Famine, a World Vision Canada program that fights hunger in the developing world.

It’s like doing a charity run, except instead of running, you mostly sit around and don’t eat. For 30 hours on April 1 and 2, I’m only going to consume water and fruit juice. Seeing as the last time I tried fasting I caved after about 15 hours, this should at least be good for some entertainment.

If you make a donation and have a website or blog, drop me an email at darren at darrenbarefoot dot com and I’ll link to you.

In case you can’t read that, here’s a larger version. It says “I refuse to do nothing”.

I’m thinking big. Let’s raise CAN $1000 by the end of the month. That feeds three children for an entire year. I’ll match the first $200, so you folks only have to come up with $800:

I’ll take whatever you got. Five bucks. Great. Fifty bucks? That’s great too. You Americans can give money too–we’re an equal opportunity website around here, and your money goes farther north of the border. I’m probably going to go on about this thing a fair bit over the next two weeks. Indulge me–it’s for a good cause.

I first learned about the 30-Hour Famine 15 years ago, when I participated in grade 11. There’s a slightly tawdry story that goes along with it, but you won’t hear it until I receive 5 10 donations. I appreciate that this program is targeted at teens, and that I don’t actually need to go hungry for 30 hours to raise cash, but I figure it’ll make for some good, light-headed blog posts on April 1 and 2.

Bloggers, throw me a bone and link to this badboy. Spread the good word. Or start your own campaign at Famine.ca.

Comments: 17 Responses so far

Jessica
March 16th, 2005
11:53 pm

I think it’s great you doing this. I actually thought about it, but figured only teenagers participate in the famine. Good luck!

[Reply]

Justin
March 17th, 2005
12:01 am

linked! Good Luck

[Reply]

Arwen
March 17th, 2005
12:41 am

linked.

[Reply]

Julia
March 17th, 2005
1:11 am

Take a £25 offering from a Brit????
Please e-mail me

[Reply]

Mack D. Male
March 17th, 2005
1:18 am

Linked. Good luck Darren!

[Reply]

Janine
March 17th, 2005
6:19 am

Linked. Great idea, Darren.

[Reply]

Meghan
March 17th, 2005
8:50 am

There you go - flexed my credit card even though it’s SO early in the morning. I had seen the commercials but didn’t know anyone who was participating, so thanks for doing this for us! Happy St. Paddy’s Day to you as well. Simon is in at St. Paul’s for heart surgery this morning (his second go round) so send good thoughts his way please. Hope all is well with you…

Love and Light.

Meg

[Reply]

Darren
March 17th, 2005
9:27 am

Thanks to everyone for the linkage and early donations.

Jessica: Thanks for this. I just checked and, yes, it looks like you can donate with a credit card from abroad. I’ve emailed you as well.

[Reply]

Brian Jones
March 17th, 2005
9:37 am

Darren,

Since I’m doing the famine too I’ve decided to steal your idea for my own blog. I wonder if I’ll actually raise anything online. I think it’s cool World Vision is making it possible for people to raise money online.

I will have a donation link on my blog sometime this week once I get a registration number.

Brian.
brianjones.ca

[Reply]

Vero
March 18th, 2005
3:55 am

Linked and blogged! Good luck with that! :)

(And enjoy the good weather! I called Ottawa to laugh at their snow last night! Muahaha!)

[Reply]

John Ko
March 29th, 2005
8:05 pm

Hey Darren,

I recently joined WVC staff this year as the Marketing Manager for the Famine recently, looking after the Regional Teams in canada. I was just surfing around and happened to land on your site.

Keep up the great work! :)

[Reply]

John Ko
March 29th, 2005
8:27 pm

Hey… quick thought… I would love to hear from you on how World Vision can get the word out about the Famine better to the blogger market. I’m sure you’d have some tonn of insights! :)

let me know.

Cheers,
John.

[Reply]

Matthew
March 30th, 2005
6:03 pm

I’ll link this, too. I’ll probably be participating, too. Good idea and good marketing (emailing Lockergnome, I mean). Hope you have success.

[Reply]

unimpressed
March 31st, 2005
5:56 pm

in australia, it’s the “40 hour famine”. what’s with the “30 hours” thing?

and btw, when i tab from your “Name:” field, i expected to land in the “Email Address:” field. i didn’t. i got whizzed up to the top of the page instead. tsk.

[Reply]

jvisser
April 1st, 2005
8:20 am

Good for you for doing this. I saw you featured in LockerGnome… so it’s working. I’ll link to you- but my blog’s new and I get pretty lousy traffic so I’ll also go make donation in $US.

[Reply]

amanda
April 4th, 2005
12:21 pm

hey…i did the famine this year…with my youth group…it was rough but we had fun and raised over 4 thousand dollars…and man does that feel good…lol…welp…good luck to you…and God Bless!

[Reply]

Cathrine
July 15th, 2006
4:57 am

Hi Darren

I have just found your webblog site and the article about the 30? hour famine. It was great to read some of the comments on your site, but why do your Canadians only do 30 hours?

Here in Australia we are just starting to make arrangements for our famine weekend and my friends sons are doing it with their youth group. Our weekend is for 40 hours and then some even do go abit further depending on health and support.

Maybe our kids are just that much more stubborn. Oh well, think of the aussies youth raising much needed funds for the wvc. Have fun and talk to you all later.

[Reply]

Add a comment