It's Spring, So Start a Virtual Garage Sale to Benefit a Green Charity!

jplatt — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:00:00 -0400

Today's the first day of Spring -- are you ready for your first garage sale of the season?

Don't worry, you don't need to leave your house or open your doors to strangers. Now you can search for "garage sale" items or sell your own through Facebook's Marketplace app. And the sales you make or the items you buy can support green charities in the process!

Take Sierra Club's virtual garage sale for an example. Their members are posting items for sale, and a few celebrities have also offered up some pretty nice goods. If the items sell, the money goes to Sierra Club. As the organization puts it, "If every Facebook member sold just one item for $10, more than $1 billion would be raised."

Now, this isn't an automatic donation. To be honest, it's really more of a classified ad system. But the people listing their items for sale can pledge to donate their proceeds to charity, and every item that sells is something that gets re-used and doesn't end up in a landfill.

So give it a try. Come on, you know you're looking for an excuse to spend a few more minutes on Facebook anyway.

Make a Friend, Plant a Tree

jplatt — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:00:00 -0400

Everyone loves Facebook for social networking. But how many of you use it to do good?

One way you can enhance your Facebook experience is to add the Tree Planter application from the Arbor Day Foundation. Developed in conjunction with Toyota, the Tree Planter app aims to plant 1 million trees through your participation.

Here's how it works: You add the Tree Planter application to your Facebook profile. For one dollar, you can then send a virtual gift to any of your friends. That one dollar plants a real tree.You can choose from ten different tree species, which will be planted in 11 American forests affected by recent forest fires.

Toyota has pledged the first $50,000 to support the program, which means that the first 50,000 virtual gifts are actually free. Every user gets to give one free tree to a friend until that 50k is used up. After that, it's up to us.

If you're not on Facebook, you can always join (it's free, and fun), or you can just visit the Arbor Day Foundation online to buy a tree on your own.

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It's Spring, So Start a Virtual Garage Sale to Benefit a Green Charity!

Make a Friend, Plant a Tree