Enlisting Your Help, Please

Posted: October 15, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy, The Campaign | Tags: | 3 Comments

As if I have not asked you for enough, I am going to ask for your help once again.  The best part about it is I am not going to ask you for any money, but you may help me get to my money goal.

I have 16 days left of my weight loss challenge.  I am going to pass the pound goal I set for myself by a couple of pounds.  “Yeah!” for me and my furniture that has to hold me up.

Right now I have 218 supporting units—now I’m not calling any of you a ‘Unit”, but sometimes a unit is one single person and some times it is a couple and maybe even it could be a whole family.  So I’ve got what in the south would be called “a mess of” people who have pledged to give the Food Bank money when I am done this challenge.  218 units is some kind of incredible and I am thankful to each and every one of you.

After I started this challenge I came up with a secondary goal just to make myself a little crazier than I already was from giving up sugar.  That challenge was to try and raise $50,000, which in Food Bank language would be $500,000 worth of food.  Right now I am on track to raise something like $35,000.  Now that is incredible and I am not really sad, but I really like to reach my goals and I don’t want to fall into some donut laden, cookie filled, cake impacted trough because I failed.

So here is the part where you come in.  I think that Ellen DeGeneres is a pretty generous person it is practically her name.  Maybe if she heard how close the Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC was to getting $50,000 for this challenge she might announce it on her show to get people to pledge in the final hour to the “Less Dana, More Good” campaign.

If you get a minute, drop Ellen a line and ask her to shout out the blog and let’s see if we can get that last $15,000.  I think you can click on the following link and fill in a form.

http://www.ellentv.com/be-on-the-show/10

She is looking for all kind of things that I don’t fit into, like bad paid for photos, or someone that needs a car, or bad Halloween costumes.  None of those things apply here.  But I think if she can hear from a few of you who have already made the commitment to help feed your hungry neighbors she might help us out.

It can’t hurt to ask and I have certainly asked you all for so much, let’s try and get some people who aren’t sick of me to help.

Campaign By the Numbers

Posted: May 23, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: The Campaign | 1 Comment

I love numbers.  I love statistics and data.  It might have stemmed from the math exercises my Dad used to make me and my sisters do while picking up rotten apples in our Connecticut orchard when I was a kid.

 

A word problem drawn from my Dad’s real life went something like this…”How many boxcars of beer, that’s train box cars, have I drunk in my life, if I started drinking when I was 16 and drank an average of five beers a day?”

 

Forget the issue of my father telling us he started drinking before he was legally able or that 5 being an average meant some days it was more than 5.  What he taught us was what questions to ask and what data did we need to figure out the answer.  How old was he at that moment?  Did he start right on his actual birthday?  How many beers does a boxcar hold?  (The answer to that was it’s own math problem, there are 24 beers in a case, a pallet holds 144 cases, the boxcar can hold… You get the idea.)

 

All this is the lead up to a report on the pledge numbers so far.  To date 117 of you have made pledges.  Thanks to each and every one of you.  The largest single pledge is for $20.00 for each pound I lose and the smallest is for .50¢.  The oddest number is one for $11.73. When asked for the significance I was told, “Everyone else just gives round numbers.”

 

The total pledged for each pound lost is $352.73, so far.

 

Now I like round numbers.  And I really like big numbers.  So to satisfy those two things I am trying to find enough people who are willing to join my team to pledge so I can get $1,000 per pound.

 

That is a really big number.  Now multiply that number by each pound I lose.  So if I can lose 50 pounds I can turn each .50¢ pledge, added to the $3 pledges and the $20 pledges and turn it into $50,000 for the Food Bank.

 

Feeding America say that when you give a dollar to the Food Bank of CENC, they can turn it into $10 worth of food.  So now that $50,000 can be turned into $500,000 worth of food.  That is a big number.  A number my Dad would like almost as much as beer.

 

So here’s the call to action.  I need you, and your sister Doris and your neighbor Hank.  I need you all to pledge so I can make this math equation work.  Please let them and any other really nice people know about this project.  Your generosity inspires me, but more importantly it helps someone who really needs a meal.  Won’t you pledge and pass it on today?

 

A Crazy Idea

Posted: May 20, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: The Campaign, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Tomorrow my Blog and Weight Loss Challenge will officially be one week old.  I want to thank all of you who have made a generous commitment to the Food Bank and me by pledging.

As of today there are 81 families who have pledged to the tune of, wait for it…$188 for every pound I lose.  That is heart warming.  I wish heart warming was more like fat melting and could help me drop the pounds, but I diverge.

I love reading the notes of which “Go Dana,”  is leading the pack as the most common comment; it starts to make me wonder where you all want me to go?  As I read I started to hatch this crazy idea.  What if I could get pledges totaling, now you really have to wait for it,  $1,000 per pound lost?  I know that is a ridiculous amount of money and I promise not to cut off a major limb, and all my limbs are major, just to get more money, but I think it is possible.

What does getting pledges of $1,00 mean?  IF you are reading this you have to pledge!  It means everyone I ever met has to pledge.  It means that even people I have never met need to pledge.  It means maybe Ellen DeGeneres would do something for the Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC, and she is way more generous than even Oprah.  Maybe we could get Ellen and Oprah to compete on giving to the Food Bank and then we could take bets on who would win.  Then maybe the FBI would get involved because I was running some kind of illegal betting scheme.  Then I might end up in the Federal Pen at Butner with Bernie Madoff.

Ok, I’m backing up to the $1,000 part.  Hey, don’t you want to be part of this Crazy Idea?  Its easy, just click on the Pledge Tab, right there at the top of this page.

Less dana live

Posted: May 14, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: The Campaign | 1 Comment

The weight loss challenge

Posted: May 13, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: The Campaign | Tags: , | 1 Comment

This fat lady plans to eat less so many hungry people can eat more.

Welcome to my new campaign!!  I need to lose weight, again! Seven years ago I created a weight loss challenge for myself which worked better than anything else I had ever done.  I lost 130 pounds and raised $47,000 for the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina by asking friends and family to pledge money for every pound I lost.

Unfortunately I am really bad at maintaining weight loss. I am not motivated to do this just for me.   So here I am, having gained 75 pounds back.  And no, I did not gain it back just to have another campaign for the Food Bank.  I have tried to lose weight in every traditional way but have failed.   I need the push of loosing weight for the greater good, for people I will never even meet.  That and knowing that other people are supporting me.

There are over 500,000 hungry people in central and Eastern North Carolina who need food!!  You are the key to helping all 500,000 and 1 of us.

So, if you are still reading and are interested in helping me and hungry people please go to the Pledge page of this website and make a pledge.  No credit card, cash or checks are needed today!  You are just going to promise that at the end of this campaign you will donate a certain amount to the Food Bank of CENC for every pound I can lose before November 1.  The motivation for me is great.  Imagine that there is $500 riding on each pound I loose.  I wouldn’t dare eat a piece of coconut cake for that.

What do you get out of this besides the great feeling of helping so many?  I am going to post not just my weight loss progress, but also my recipes with photos of what I am eating, if it is any good.  If you are interested in eating a more heathy diet or just want some inspiration about what to cook for dinner tonight you can visit this blog to see what I am cooking.

Thanks for going on this journey with me.  Feel free to share it with your friends.