Help by Gaming

I'm not big into video games. My inner- (okay outer) nerd is into enough dorky stuff. But a lot of people love playing games online, and that's great. Here are a few games that let you help worthy causes just by playing!

• Free Rice is a vocabulary game that donates rice to those in need through the World Food Programme.
• Games that Give offers a whole list of games you can play, all of which let you give to charitable organizations by playing.
• Joy Kingdom lets you allocate money to organizations that help animals. Ellen Degeneres helped to develop this one.
• WeTopia is a Facebook game that helps real children while you play.

Where Does the Money Really Come From?

These games cost nothing to play, so who's actually donating? From what I can tell, the giving structure for these kinds of games is pretty simple. Advertisers pay money to have their ads featured on the game pages, or other sponsorship and marketing platforms, and that money pays for the games' development and the donations. So really when you're playing, you're just telling the advertisers where to donate their money. I'd prefer that the donors just give the money outright, but from a marketing perspective I can see that it's a great way to connect with an audience to increase awareness about a brand's charitable giving. Sojo Studios is the developer behind both WeTopia and Joy Kingdom. According to this article from Kotaku,

"Sojo's formula is pretty simple. Half of the profit from in-game purchases and advertising revenue is applied towards the various charities. Through choices made in game, you decide how your portion of that is distributed." 

And the Games that Give website states "GamesThatGive combined gaming with charitable giving to create the leading platform for engaging brands' customers in charitable activities."

Not into games either?

Care2's click to donate programs are even simpler. You literally just click to allocate funds to certain organizations. I like to add the links to my various online profiles and email signatures to encourage people to click!

One Plastic Bag

Every once in a while I forget to bring my reusable bags with me when I run my errands. I recently found myself picking up a few small things at the little grocery store near my parents' house. When I asked the cashier to fit everything into one bag, she insisted on double-bagging it so the bag wouldn't break. Uhm, you're kind of missing the point there, sweetheart. And when I got home I discovered that she'd wrapped an item it its own bag before packing it, so I actually wound up with three bags instead of just one. D'oh.

So I'm making another small change. I always keep a stash of reusable bags in my car to avoid these situations. But now I'm going to start keeping a reusable grocery bag in my purse too.

If you're not convinced that your occasional plastic bag makes that big of a difference, take a look at some of my favorite infographics about plastic bags.

 

This is a great visual, but take this inforgraphic with a grain of salt.
It was produced by a manufacturer of promotional reusable bags.

Before you go out and buy a reusable bag, check your junk drawer and ask your friends. They seem to be everywhere these days and, unfortunately, are being over-manufactured by companies who want to cash in on the growing trend. My mom is always asking me if I want the bag she was given for free and some store or other. You should have no problem getting your hands on at least one without spending a cent!


Further Reading
Here's an interesting range of information including arguments both for and against the banning of plastic bags, and the rising popularity of reusable bags.

• http://www.reuseit.com/learn-more/myth-busting/cheap-reusables-are-a-good-thing
• http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/10/05/Chinese-smear-mongers-push-US-plastic-bag-bans
• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444165804578006832478712400.htm
• http://savetheplasticbag.com/ (wait, WHAT?)
• http://www.petside.com/article/dog-poop-cleanup-rethinking-plastic-bags

This Video is Just Fun

Beet Risotto Stuffed Squash

Now that fall is here, I've got more squash than I know what to do with, courtesy of my fabulous CSA share from Porter Farms. My kitchen is overflowing with spaghetti squash, butternut squash, and acorn squash. I can't eat it fast enough!

This week when I found out (via Porter Farms' Facebook page) that we'd be getting beets and acorn squash, I immediately came up with a plan of action. I'd come across this recipe for beet risotto on Pinterest, and knew right away that it would be perfect stuffed into a squash. Good news: I was right!

I'm lucky to have a local goat cheese producer here in Western New York. I visited the First Light Farm & Creamery stand at the Elmwood-Bidwell farmers market here in Buffalo this weekend, and decided that the honey-chipotle chevre would be a good match for the recipe. If they hadn't been out of the garlic-thyme, I may have chosen that flavor instead, but this was perfect! Of course if you aren't lucky enough to have fresh, local goat cheese available to you, a good chevre from your grocery store would be fine. And if you prefer to keep the recipe vegan, you can just leave the goat cheese out entirely.

Beet Risotto Stuffed Squash with Honey Chipotle Goat Cheese

Ingredients

• 3 small acorn squash (or other small squash)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 3 beets, chopped
• 1 small sweet onion, chopped
• 1 cup arborio rice
• 3 cups vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• ½ cups chevre goat cheese

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds and pulp. Place the squash cut side up on a baking sheet, bake about 30 minutes until squash is tender. (You can rub the squash with oil before baking, but I didn't and it turned out fine.)

While the squash is baking -
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the beets and onion, cook until soft (about 10 minutes.) Add the rice and toss to coat. Add broth and vinegar and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to simmer, add thyme, and cover.
Simmer, stirring occasionally, until rice is cooked and risotto is creamy (15-20 minutes.)
Season with salt & pepper to taste.

Remove the squash from the oven, stuff with risotto, and sprinkle with the goat cheese.
Enjoy!


Yield: 6 servings


Nutritional Analysis of one squash half stuffed with the risotto including the goat cheese:
Calories per serving: 349 Calories from fat: 102 Total Fat: 11.4g Saturated Fat: 4.8g Cholesterol: 10mg Sodium: 237mg Total Carbohydrates: 56.7g Dietary Fiber: 6.1g Sugars: 5.6g Protein: 9.4g

No More Junk Mail

I recently started receiving huge amounts of travel catalogs. I'm talking multiple reams of paper worth of literature about visiting Colorado. I don't have any immediate plans to visit the Centennial State, so I'm not sure why they've been sending me so much literature. But it kept on coming, and filling my recycling bin. Seemed wasteful to me, so I decided to look into it.

Over 100 million trees are cut down annually to produce junk mail. That's a lot of deforestation! Unfortunately, most of that mail goes directly into landfills, contributing more than 4 million TONS of paper waste every year.

The average person receives about 40 lbs of paper junk mail every year. So imagine the positive impact that one person cancelling their junk mail can have on the planet!

Stopping junk mail is a great way to help the planet AND stop the annoying junk from showing up in your mail box. Here are some tools to help you do it.

• The PaperKarma App - I'm presently obsessed with this (free) mobile app. Take a quick photo of the junkmail in your mailbox, and the app takes care of the rest. The folks behind the app identify where the junkmail is coming from, and contact the sender to have you removed from their lists. Your profile can contain multiple addresses so you can use it for mail you receive at home, at work, etc. The whole thing is BRILLIANT.
• DMA Choice is a service offered by the Direct Marketing Association. It allows you to manage what kind of junk mail you receive.
• OutOutPreScreen is the official opt-out site for the consumer credit reporting industry. You can opt-out online to stop receiving mail from credit cards and insurance companies for five years, or print out and mail in the opt-out election form to have the mail stop permanently. You can also call 1-800-5-OPTOUT 
• Catalog Choice offers a product that will block large data brokers from selling your contact information.
• 41 Pounds is a paid service that contacts marketing companies on your behalf to remove you from major mailing lists.
• The Native Forest Network has a great list of other resources for getting your name off of junk mailing lists.

The PaperKarma App tracks all of your opt-out requests.

You Mailbox Needn't Be Empty!

Everyone loves getting mail. The advent of email and paperless billing is making your mailbox pretty obscolete. If you don't want to open an empty mailbox every day, here's a way to get something awesome in the mail that ISNT junk. Subscribe to the Paris Letters by my friend Janice. You'll receive beautifully illustrated letters from her about life and love in Paris. I'm pretty sure these will never make their way into a landfill!

Small Ones Surround Us Every Day

"Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day."  -Sally Koch

Welcome to Small Ones Surround Us. I'm here to share small steps I'm taking, and steps I hope readers will take, to make every day a little bit better for people, animals, and the planet. That means seeking out responsible fashion, buying and cooking food that's better for us and the planet, and teaching others about how they can make small changes of their own.

Sometimes small changes locally can have an impact on big changes globally, so occasionally my posts will be specific to my hometown of Buffalo, but everything I share is about making small changes that affect the big picture. I'm slowly making adjustments to my lifestyle that I hope are making every day better for our planet, our fellow man, and our animal friends.