The Seattle Foundation’s GiveBIG is a one-day, online charitable giving event to inspire people to give generously to nonprofit organizations who make our region a healthier and more vital place to live. 

Each credit card donation* made to the more than 1,400 nonprofit organizations profiled on The Seattle Foundation’s website between midnight and midnight (Pacific Daylight Time) on Wednesday, May 15, 2013, will receive a prorated portion of the matching funds (or “stretch”) pool.

The amount of the “stretch” depends on the size of the stretch pool and how much is raised in total donations on GiveBIG day. Learn more about GiveBIG and mark your calendar for May 15!

Urgent blood transfusion, were it actually available, could save millions of lives throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in children under five suffering from the effects of malaria.

Unfortunately rural African blood banking facilities are barely existent. Usually a transfusion is the dream that would have saved a child’s life, and 60% of children suffering from malaria-related anemia die before that dream can happen. 

Early January our dream came true: MMC launched the Blood Transfusion Centre at Muhuru Bay. We gladly bid farewell to needless death and suffering due to lack of available blood supply.

Already, two weeks in, our new blood transfusion center is working miracles … or at least no longer requiring them to stay alive. The child battling malaria in the photo below was carried over rocky terrain some thirty+ miles in search of a blood transfusion. She found one – and a second chance at life – at MMC.

Even small acts count when it comes to changing the world, and luckily they feel just as good. Join with us and the rest of the planet on World Humanitarian Day to make life a little better, kinder – and in some cases, last another day – for people around the world, especially in forgotten pockets of Africa.

We invite you to help Mama Maria Clinics and the United Nations make a difference in someone else’s life. Donate today to MMC and make a difference – of perhaps tiny significance to you – but with the potential to change a life in rural Kenya.

Donate $25 each month and 100 children will be vaccinated for an entire year – every month. Donate $50 now and enroll a pregnant woman in MamaCare. Donate $100 and provide a month’s worth of food for our in-patient ill or donate $250 or $500 and provide a nurse one month’s salary or put 10 HIV patients on ARVs. (Ten people who had probably given up on the hope of living.)

After donating visit the UN’s “I Was Here” campaign (left) and place your pin on the map (below). Share your mark on the world and encourage your friends to make a difference, too. Tag the social media of your choice, tell your friends about MMC, and let’s see how many people we can get to post on our tiny corner of the map.

As we embark on our biggest mission yet – scaling up throughout Kenya – we  need your help to save lives. Make your mark on humanity. Donate today and together let’s celebrate people helping people.

Here’s your chance once again to be part of something big(ger). Join with some of Seattle’s key players in an exciting event that will amplify the impact of your gift to us. GiveBIG is a community-wide giving challenge created by The Seattle Foundation that increases the size of your donation to us.

All online donations will stretch to share distribution of $500,000. If you donate $10 it just might be $15! Any amount helps! Learn all the ways GiveBIG will grow your generosity.

And to give you a little something special to focus your generosity on, we’re thrilled to announce the re-launch of the MMC Goat program – supporting of our benevolence programs for the truly indigent (those unable to afford even lowest of fees on our sliding scale). Goats in rural Kenya are, in truth, little bank accounts. We sell them for $50, but their impact on the ground is more like a $5,000 deposit in the bank.And with the GiveBIG campaign, now’s the time to invest in a “benevolent” goat. Buy one for yourself, one for Mother’s Day – for any reason. Because goats purchased today are simply worth more – when you donate between 7 a.m. and midnight through our page in The Seattle Foundation’s Giving Center.

So, get a goat – then rally your friends to support Mama Maria today through Facebook or Twitter (#GiveBig).

Thank you for GivingBIG!