The time has come again to nominate your favorite local non-profit for our quarterly donation! Every three months we donate 10% of our revenue to a local non-profit based on your suggestions and votes!

Our summer donation went to Brother Benno's and our Spring donation went to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank. We'll be voting next week, so make your nominations now by commenting on this blog post below! But first, a couple of guidelines:

1. Only non-profits whose mission involves combating poverty.

2. Only those locally based in your area (wherever that may be). In other words, no national organizations who might already be relatively well-funded.

3. Please include the name, website link, and brief information about the organization.

This quarter we're on track to give away a minimum of another $300, so hurry up and make your nomination now so your favorite poverty relief charity has a shot at this donation!

News about the economy seems to get worse every day. So, we want to hear from you! We've setup a couple of forums to discuss how you're managing to get by during harder economic times. has your family been affected? If so, how?

We also want to hear from you about how the Twoshirts community can better help their friends and neighbors during these tough times. What are your ideas?

Head over to the forums to check it out.

We're pleased to announce the winner of our summer quarter non-profit donation: Brother Benno's! This fantastic organization in Oceanside, California was your choice according to voting results ending last night.

Brother Benno's provides everything from daily meals, free showers, bag lunches, and affordable furniture and housewares for struggling people in Oceanside. Their story is amazing, and well worth getting to know.

Accordingly, Brother Benno's will receive a donation from the Twoshirts community in the amount of $333.50 - which represents 10% of all support funds given to Twoshirts.org from June 1, through August 31, 2008.

There will be another donation at the end of the fall, so don't forget to nominate your favorite local non-profit for our next gift! We've already opened a new forum for nominations, so go there and make your nominations!

It's time to vote for the quarterly Twoshirts Non-Profit Donation! This summer we are on track to receive at least $3000 in donations, which means that the non-profit group you vote for will receive a donation of at least $300.

Vote in the right-hand sidebar for one of three member-nominated non-profit groups:

One Note at a Time
Twoshirts member Kerri Seger has started her own non-profit for providing music instruction for impoverished children in Haiti. She needs funds for her upcoming summer trip. Read more about her organization by visiting her website linked above. We also profiled Kerri's amazing efforts in our recent Summer issue of The Gift, available now.

Brother Benno's
This social service organization in Oceanside, California serves the poor in their area with "Soup, Soap, Hugs, and Hope." Read more about them by clicking on the website link above.

One Block at a Time

You may not have noticed, but we recently made a very small but incredibly helpful change to the My Twoshirts Menu over in the right sidebar.

Until now, when you clicked the "My Items" link you were presented with a list of all your items, active and inactive alike. The problem was you couldn't tell what had expired without going into each item one at a time and looking at the control panel. Frankly, that sucked.

So, we've split that link into two new links: "My Active Items" and "My Inactive Items." Now you can simply click each one to quickly and easily manage your Twoshirts stuff!

Every quarter Twoshirts gives away 10% of the donations we receive to a small, poverty-relief non-profit based on your votes.

So far we're on track to give away no less than $300, which is quite a bit more than the $87 we gave away in the spring! That amount could definitely help a small non-profit in your area. The more donations we receive, the more we give away!

Please help us out today by nominating your favorite non-profit for our summer gift, based on these guidelines:

1. Only non-profits whose mission involves combating poverty.

2. Only locally based non-profits in your area (wherever that may be). In other words, no national organizations who might already be relatively well-funded.

3. Submit a new post in the Summer Gift Nominations Forum with the NAME of the Non-profit as the title.

4. Please write a brief description of the organization in the body of the post, including contact information.

We're excited to announce our first Back to School Swap here at Twoshirts.org. The idea is simple: post as many kids clothes, shoes, and school supplies as you can some of us can get what we need. Chances are we all have a little extra, and with times as tough as they are right now, we know there are lots of folks with needs.

Maybe if we all share and swap our stuff, we can take a little better care of each other. We've posted more details on the front page, so why click here now to go check it out?

Polls closed last night for our Spring Non-Profit Donation, and we have a winner! 71 of you voted and your choice was clear: the Mid-Ohio Food Bank will be receiving a check from Twoshirts.org for 10% of the total donations we received from March 1, 2008 through May 31, 2008.

Our total receipts during this time were $870.00, meaning we'll be sending a donation to Mid-Ohio Food bank in the amount of $87.00! We're very excited to be making this, our very first ever Twoshirts donation on your behalf, and we look forward to continuing this program every quarter from here on.

In addition to funding quarterly non-profit gifts, your donations enable us to keep Twoshirts.org running and make improvements to the site so practicing generosity in the Twoshirts community is easy and fun. If you haven't already, please consider making a donation to the cause.

It's the last week of May, which means it's time to vote for the recipient of our first quarterly non-profit donation. At the end of every quarter we'll donate 10% of our support revenue from that quarter to the poverty focused non-profit of your choice.

Our support donations so far have totaled $850. Click here to contribute your support for the operation of Twoshirts.org and increase the amount of our donation this week!

The candidates are (click on each to find out more):

• Lower Lights Ministries
• The Mid Ohio Food Bank
• Candles for Jesus Furniture Ministry
• Haiti Music Schools Project
• The Westside Freestore

Check out this short video produced by the Toronto Star newspaper, asking school children the question, "What is poverty and what should be done about it?" I thought it would add an interesting perspective to the question we've been asking