On The First Day of Christmas....

Oh! This makes me so happy! I am SO glad to be researching and discussing charities! Cat in an Apron will donate 15% of every sale to one of the charities I'll be profiling - you choose which one - for the first 12 days of December.

Now, the whole twelve days of Christmas song seems to have all kinds of history associated with it - it seems no one can agree. One truth for sure, is that it counts down the days from Christmas to Epiphany. We are going to visit them BEFORE Christmas, so we can get lovely gifts to you in time for gift giving, and so the money we are donating gets in the right hands before Christmas.

On the FIRST day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: A partridge in a pear tree!

This should not conjure an image of a redheaded little boy in bell bottoms climbing a fruit tree, but peace, or Jesus, or MUCH more you can find here if you are so inclined. Very interesting!

Our first charity I'll be profiling is Casa Cards. Casa cards produces cards featuring artwork by children. They are just beautiful. (click on the image above to order the cards.) They contain that purity and heart that we adults are always trying to get back to. The sale of these cards funds their goal: "to raise awareness and funding for Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) programs, which provide individual advocacy for children who have been abused." Here is their statement:

• Founded in 1989 by board members of then Multnomah County CASA, the project is currently operated by CASA for Children, serving Multnomah and Washington Counties in Oregon. Over the past 1 9 years, more than 5. 5 million CASA Cards have been sold from our office in Portland and through participating CASA programs nationwide. Proceeds from the sale of our products directly fund the training and support of volunteers who advocate within the juvenile court and child welfare systems. In Multnomah and Washington Counties, every $1500 that CASA Cards generates provides a full year of advocacy for one child. The more cards we sell, the more kids we can help.

This started here in Portland, but there is a national casa, too.

You can also help by buying cards, or by becoming a volunteer advocate. If every child had an advocate looking out for them, I'm sure the system would work so much better! I really want to do this when my kids are a little older.

Remember, we'll give 15% of every sale during these first 12 days of December to one of our 12 charities. If you'd like it to be Casa for Children / Casa Cards, just email me at marne@catinanapron.com and I will take care of it.

If we are feeling this economy as much as we are, I can only imagine the charities are feeling it more, let's support them. I wish you the very best this season!