Archive for February 1st, 2010

Target's Super Love Sender online campaign is a creative, free way for people to support a charity of their choice while getting in the Valentine's Day/Super Bowl Spirit.

Valentine’s Day and Super Bowl Sunday are only a week apart, and Target is celebrating with a two-week-long online giving campaign through their Facebook page at facebook.com/Target!

Their ‘Super Love Sender’ campaign, which runs from January 31 through February 14, 2010, combines football and romance just in time for these special days. Participants will decide how 5 national charities will receive a portion of $1 million donation from Target to fund educational programming. The charities are:

• The Salvation Army
• Kids In Need Foundation
• St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
• United Way
• United Through Reading® Military Program

Through Super Love Sender, participants can send a funny, football-inspired valentine video card to significant others, friends, and family in support of the charity of their choice. Best of all, the cards are free to participants!  Every time an online video card is sent, the selected charity will receive one vote.  The total percentage of votes will correlate to the charities’ portion of the $1 million received in a one-time donation from Target.

I won’t tell you who to root for during the Super Bowl, BUT, I will, of course, encourage you to select the Salvation Army when sending out your Super Love Sender cards. The Salvation Army will use funds to support the educational enrichment of children and families during the back-to-school timeframe.

When I checked out the Super Love Sender and made my own card, I was truly impressed by Target’s creativity! You can customize your online card by selecting from 3 themes: a song, dance, or poem, all performed by goofy football players on a stage of plush pink. These athletes may not be the most macho guys in the huddle, but they will score a laugh.

If you’re thinking about a significant other, the poem theme may be the way to go (the football player’s cougar growl is worthy of provoking a smile), and the dance theme would be great for anyone ( the ‘freestyle scrimmage’ and ‘man in motion choreography’ are just a few examples of the dance moves to choose from).

Participants can send a maximum of 10 video cards per computer per day, throughout the campaign.  All votes and dollars allocated will be updated in real time on the Target Facebook Page, and the final donation allocation will be announced on February 15, 2010.

And thank you to Target for creating a fun and innovative campaign to support charities and education. Since 1946, Target has given 5 percent of its income through community grants and programs like Take Charge of Education. Today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week for education, the arts, social services and volunteerism nationwide.

Once you create a card for someone special, be sure to leave a comment on our blog about how you chose to personalize it and your tips for other participants!

Haitians gather to receive food and water distributed by The Salvation Army. (Photo: Yves Montoban)

While the situation in Haiti continues to be very serious, The Salvation Army Relief Team is providing massive amounts of food, water and other relief materials to the people affected by the earthquake.

Our team received two shipments of food and water over Saturday and Sunday, totaling almost 630,000 meals, more than over 5,100 individual water bottles, and 1,300 gallon jugs of water.

Team members were also coordinating with the US Army 82^nd Airborne to arrange a food delivery of more than 174,000 meals to a particularly hard hit neighborhood in Port-au-Prince which has not received any major food distributions before now.

In the United States, massive community packaging events are being held around the country.  These volunteer services have been crucial in helping The Salvation Army to deliver well over 1.3 million meals already and will ensure that these life-saving deliveries continue until local systems can be restored.

Early estimates are that The Salvation Army will be required to supply over 1 million meals per week for at least the next six weeks in order to sustain displaced families until regular and sustainable UN deliveries of food can be put into place.

Meanwhile, as The Salvation Army carries out its role as lead agency in caring for some 20,000 displaced Haitians, our workers continued to hold meetings and forge partnerships in order to address the devastated Delmas 2 neighborhood. Critically important issues being addressed is water and sanitation, the provision of medium-term shelter, and regular and reliable deliveries of food.  On-going medical services and the timely restoration of education programs for displaced children are also priorities.

This weekend was also a transition time for the team as some members left Haiti and new team members arrived in their place.  International emergency personnel continue to provide support and assistance for our Haitian Salvation Army Officers and staff who have been working heroically and self-sacrificially ever since the earthquake.

Critical medical services continued this weekend as well as the arrival of a new team of doctors, nurses, and support staff replaced outgoing medical personnel.