It's been another great week here at Twoshirts.org. The community continues to grow in surprising ways. More people have joined this week than in any previous week and we've seen the addition of two new Groups as well.

Altogether 57 people joined the growing community of generosity here at Twoshirts.org this week - most of whom were from outside Columbus, Ohio! We now have folks from the Cleveland, Toledo, Cincinnati, and Dayton areas. Welcome guys, it's good to have you here!

Some of these new members have taken the initiative to start Twoshirts Groups; if you click here you'll see that we added an OSU campus group and a Cincinnati group. If any of you are in these areas, all you have to do to join these groups is click the "subscribe" link next the the group you want to join at the groups page.

We also added members in Illinois and Massachusetts and in a particularly surprising twist we even added members in New Zealand and Belgium! Welcome guys!

All of this growth obviously has something to do with the February Challenge to see who can invite the most members - a challenge that Brian Stevenson appears to be running away with, although DoctorBravo and gregknake appear to be gaining on him. With 19 days remaining there's still plenty of time for anyone to win this challenge. Don't forget, we'll be announcing the prize this Friday.

Speaking of Brian Stevenson, some of you have noticed he took the initiative to offer gift cards to people in a few states (here, here, here, and here) where we don't yet have any Twoshirts communities. This was Brian's idea and illustrates something unique about Twoshirts.org: we are a grass-roots community that operates from the bottom-up, not the top-down. Brian didn't need permission to do this (and he didn't ask), he just had an idea and rolled with it. If you have an idea that you think fits with the mission of Twoshirts.org, just roll with it. Like I always say, it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Good job Brian.

One last thing. This week we posted a page full of suggestions for starting a Twoshirts community from scratch in your area. Lots of you are the only member in your area, but don't let that discourage you. You can get the word out and make a difference in your town and hopefully some of these ideas will help.

Stay tuned for more exciting stuff! We'll be announcing a new project this week, an outreach in Columbus, and the prize for the February Challenge.

Regards,
Jason Coker