Over the years, we spent tons of time taking care of our turtles until their individual demises. Turtles are meant to live long lives. Unfortunately, one of ours was visually impaired. His eyelid never fully separated, so he had trouble seeing his food to get at it and defending himself from our other male turtle, among other things. He passed away at 6 years old. Our other turtle passed away a year later. We can’t explain it, other than he was lonely which doesn’t make any sense to us, since turtles are solitary creatures and generally do not need company.

Needless to say, turtles are still very close to our heart. We’ve continued to maintain our turtle website off and on throughout the years. And of course, when events like the gulf oil spill occur, my heart breaks to see all these mammals, birds and sea turtles coated in oil and dying in the clean up fires.

Dirty South by kk+, on Flickr

gulf_death_turtle2 by sum1nil, on Flickr

Fortunately, there are organizations out there concerned about the health and safety of the marine wildlife. Even BP Oil Company, the cause of this particular catastrophe, is making efforts to monitor the affects of the oil spill on the marine life after coming under close scrutiny due to how they were handling their cleanup:

Rescued Turtle is Examined by BP America, on Flickr

But the real heroes of this story are the organizations who have always cared. The organizations who have been there for the marine life from the beginning. What’s even better is that there are other organizations trying to help out as best as they can. Craft Hope is one of those groups.

Craft Hope is currently running a project where they are helping out several organizations by sending them handmade wash towels and rags. I have to admit, I’m generally a sucker for whenever the craft community comes together for a cause. Finding this project on Craft Hope was definitely a treat and I couldn’t wait to get started.

However, due to the overwhelming goodwill and donations by amazing crafters, Craft Hope has supplied the gulf coast relief organizations with towels for years! Years! Can you imagine? How awesome is that. Unfortunately for me, since I didn’t get a chance to help out, Project 8 is now on hold. If you’ve known about the project, but haven’t made the towels for donation by now, you can stop. There’s literally no place to store them… Just look at one of the stash photos that Kim, the project volunteer, had ready to go in her house:

You should also see the rest of the box photos and read her blog post on the delivery of the boxes to The Institute of Marine Mammal Studies.

Craft Hope did mention in their post that they would be checking with other organizations this week to see if there were others that might be in need of the surplus of hand towels. Make sure to check their blog for Project 8 updates.

How about you? Did you participate? I’d love to see your photos and/or blog posts on the towels you made. Leave me a comment with a link to let me know!

This post is part of the 52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion series by Tara Gentile of Scoutie Girl. If you’re interested in participating in the group, pick up her e-book today! You can start at any time.

Go check it out!

If you’ve been visiting my site for the past month (and wondering why I hadn’t posted in such a long time), you can attribute part of the delay in news to these beautiful earrings shown above. Back in May, I was contacted by SheFinds to participate in a promotion to help raise money for Count Me In, the leading national not-for-profit provider of business resources and education for women entrepreneurs.

During September, SheFinds will feature original accessories created by independent designers that incorporate either the Count Me In motto “Believe In You”, their logo or program logos, and/or the official colors into the design. The designers are all pledging to donate a portion of the proceeds from all sales of these items made from September 1st to December 31st to Count Me In. Once the promotion starts, you can keep up on the designers by clicking through to the SheFinds site or through the image at the right.

The Count Me In mission of promoting economic independence and the growth of women-owned businesses really hits home for me. As a woman entrepreneur who has not one (jewelry), but two (web development) businesses, I understand the necessity for programs to help women in all aspects of business.

My hope is that by donating 25% of the proceeds made from the sale of these earrings, which will be a limited edition series, Count Me In will get one step closer to their organization’s goals. The great thing about this is that I’m not the only one who feels like this and I’ve heard that plenty other designers are stepping up to the plate.

If you know anyone who can benefit from this organization or who would be willing to make a purchase knowing that it was for a good cause, please take the time to forward this information to them. Help yourself or someone else grow their business!

It got me to thinking about my aunt, Sarah, who passed away from radiation-aggravated pneumonia. While she wasn’t my aunt by family, she certainly was in spirit… and that’s something she had a lot of being a 4 time cancer survivor and a mastectomy recipient.

Despite all the sadness in her life, she was the rock of our families. As an inspiration, she was such a driving force that a few years ago, I even did a Team in Training event where I raised over $1600 for cancer research while I trained to skate an 80+ mile trek from Athens to Atlanta. I figured if she could live with cancer and triumph, I could deal with the blister pain and lethargia I was certain to sustain for weeks after the event.

I never got to finish the event. (Once you start doing 26 miles on a daily basis, it takes a toll on your body and my body wasn’t quite ready for it.) But I did raise the money, of which I’m very proud. Now, I’m feeling the need to donate again, but this time I can go about it a little differently. For the month of October, I will be donating all the proceeds of any items with pink sold to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation.

Oh, and back to the flickr group… In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Yahoo! is donating $1 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure for each pink photo added to the Passionately Pink for the Cure pool up to $50,000. So get to adding your photos now! That’s where I’m heading…