Hey everyone!

I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to get to this wrap-up post! We want to thank each and every one of you – sincerely – for your participation in The One Dollar Give. We don’t yet have any final numbers on the amount that has been donated through the campaign. It turns out they’re a lot harder to get than we expected, but I’ll be working on that this weekend. However, there are currently about 75 subscribers to our feed, and we’re anxious to know how much we have contributed as a group this month. Beyond that, Tara and I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to introduce you to these 31 great charities this month, and we thank you for joining us along the way.

To be honest, if I had known what December would be like for my family, I probably would have never taken on The One Dollar Give as a project. We mourned the loss of a friend of the family and my husband’s grandmother this month and attended both of their funerals. We fought – and seem to have finally won – a battle with the stomach flu that just would not end, culminating in a midnight trip to the ER for my husband. We were excited to learn that I was expecting our fourth child, and devastated when I had an early miscarriage. And then, when our 15-month-old began developing unexplained bruises, we were worried about the worst possibilities as we took her for testing at our local hospital. We were thankful that her diagnosis was “just” idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, a blood disorder with no apparent causes and no lasting effects, and not something worse. And then, we once again faced our fears a week later when she was hospitalized with an unexplained high fever, which we soon found out was just her body’s reaction to a nasty cold virus.

Phew, it’s been a wild ride, and we’re ready for a break from the crises for sure!

However, I’m thankful that I didn’t know all of that was going to happen, because I learned a lot about commitment and perseverance from the administration of the campaign, and both Tara and I were inspired by the passion of our guest bloggers and of you as participants.

We will be continuing The One Dollar Give in 2009 on a weekly basis (although, to be honest, this week has snuck up on us and we don’t have one lined up). Now would be a great time to share the campaign once again with your friends and family, blog readers and social networks. While we hope that the campaign will continue to grow and we will be able to have a significant financial impact on the organizations that we feature, there is no doubt that there is value in simply spreading the word about these great charities…and in reading about them and remembering those around us living with poverty, sickness or persecution.

We look forward to a great year in 2009, and again, thank you!

Mandi and Tara