Let's do something good together

A chance to TRIPLE your donations

[Note: you can find the fundraiser referenced in this post here: https://www.facebook.com/donate/777519506740113/10210200135277444/ ]

As my birthday approaches, my annual “raise money to fight malaria” ritual feels a little more pressing than it has before.

This past year has been hard. God has confronted me with questions I’d rather have ignored: what does faith look like when chronic headaches take away your normal rhythms? If I really cared about loving my (global) neighbor, how could I justify spending so much time on nonsense like “negative-twelve dimensional shapes”? How do you navigate life in a community of people you genuinely love whose actions you believe are causing harm?

I am tired of difficult questions. I am tired of the uncertainty, the emotional fatigue, the absolutely soul-crushing stress. I am tired of waking up in the middle of the night because my head hurts. I am tired of public and personally costly stances that never seem to lead to any sort of change.

I won’t be tired forever.

But I am tired today, and all I want is to come together with my friends and family to do something that’s just simply *good*. Something that, when everything gets weird and hard and messy, we can point to and say “that day we pushed the darkness back just a little tiny bit.”

So if twenty-seven isn’t too old for cheesy birthday wishes, I want to save a child’s life together. I want us to find a person that’s set for a young and painful death and instead give them a full life — a life of work and fun, of love and heartbreak, of silly inside jokes and awkward talks and serious heart-to-hearts, of faith and fears and doubts and dreams and everything that comes with them. I want to hand somebody a shot at the world and see what they can make of it.

This is a big ask, but it isn’t impossible. GiveWell.org* is currently estimating that Malaria Consortium saves approximately one life per $4500 donated**. My summer job pays quite well, so I can match any donations you make 2:1 — meaning that if you donate $40, Malaria Consortium will receive a total of $120.***

I know not everybody is in a financial position to give right now, and that’s okay. But if you are, let’s give a little bit of light to a world that desperately needs it. Let’s do something wonderful together.

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*Givewell.org is a nonprofit that uses rigorous research to evaluate the impact of charitable giving. In the interest of full transparency, I should disclose that I am currently working on a water-related project partly funded by a GiveWell grant. I have no connection to Malaria Consortium besides financially supporting it.

** It used to be around $3000 — I get the sense that the increase is partly due to COVID, and partly due to some of the world’s malaria funding gaps being filled (so now they’re expanding to harder-to-reach areas!)

** This will definitely hold for the first $1500 in donations so we can hit the “one life” target. If you donate more, I’ll keep matching until I use up my extra summer pay — I’ll update this post when and if this happens. (If we’ve reached our goal and you’re planning on donating, feel free to ask!)