Help raise $10,000 for Girls for a Change!

The following is a post sponsored by Yahoo! Every time someone clicks here to make Yahoo! their homepage, they're showing their support for Girls For A Change.

I was selected for this opportunity by Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

*     *     *

"Girl power + activism creating change" that's Girls for a Change.

I love it. 

But I didn't know about it before I was invited to participate in this Yahoo campaign to raise funds for Girls For A Change. This is one kick-butt organization. Check it out. Here's how they describe themselves:

“Girls For A Change (GFC) is a national organization that empowers girls to create social change. We invite young women to design, lead, fund and implement social change projects that tackle issues girls face in their own neighborhoods. GFC empowers girls for personal and social transformation. The program inspires girls to have the voice, ability and problem solving capacity to speak up, be decision makers, create visionary change and realize their full potential."

In 2009-2010, Girls For A Change served over 1,860 girls in ten states, Rwanda, and Swaziland. They welcome and serve all girls, but focus on girls who live in low-income communities. You can find out where they are on their web site HERE. 

To me, Girls For A Change sounds like a pretty cool organization. They are helping girls build better communities and from everything I've read, once young people are invested in their communities, they tend to make better choices throughout all areas of their lives. It's something I've experienced when I've volunteered in my community. I've done a bunch of volunteer work with girls and young women who lived in shelters and  children's homes. What I witnessed was that the girls who gave back to the community as part of a program were more successful with it -- they were less likely to get in trouble and more likely to try to do well in school. Just my experience but I believe there is some truth to it.

Right now, YOU can easily help raise money for Girls For A Change through a Yahoo! and Clever Girls Collective campaign. Here's the deal:

Yahoo! will donate $10 to Girls For A Change (GFC) for each person who clicks here to make Yahoo! her homepage by July 1...up to an amazing $10,000! We're counting on you to help us find 1,000 people willing to make a change worth $10,000 to this fantastic cause.

Clever Girls Collective selected GFC as the non-profit for this generous Yahoo! campaign because it matches our mission of empowering women to help each other. Clever Founder Sheila Bernus Dowd was a GFC volunteer and member of the advisory board, so they have first-hand experience with their commitment to helping girls become community leaders. 

Why Should You Make Yahoo! Your Homepage? It offers...

• Personalized content: The Yahoo! homepage delivers you the most relevant content based on your interests, time of day, and what’s most popular with other users like you.

• Your World and The World: The Yahoo! homepage uniquely brings together your world (your email, local news) with the world around you (current events, entertainment news, financial updates and more)

• Human Interest: Articles on the homepage have a human approach – more than just news, it delivers human interest stories that you just have to click on

Go now! Make Yahoo! your homepage and help raise important funds for Girls For A Change! You'll feel good about it, honestly you will :-)

I thank you!

Beaba Bib'expresso review

Thank you to Béaba for providing me with a Bib’expresso to review free of charge. To order your own Bib'expresso or one of many Béaba products, visit www.beabausa.com.

I am a breastfeeding mama who likes to break free from the baby once in a while. This means I have to prepare bottles now and then to allow my husband and, occasionally my mother and father, to watch the babe while I do something without my little guy. You know, like get a hair cut, go for a long run, that sort of thing.

So, when I was invited to review the Beaba Bib'expresso, a feeding bottle warmer, I jumped at the chance.

You see, thawing bottles of frozen breast milk is not always convenient. You can't heat the milk in the microwave and letting it thaw in the refrigerator takes forever. So I usually end up placing the bottle of frozen milk in a bowl of very warm tap water. It works, but it takes a good half hour (at least). All of this means that there is a good bit of forethought that needs to occur to ensure that a bottle is available for my baby when I'm not around.

The Bib'expresso promises to fix that by speeding up the heating process while avoiding the problems with microwave heating (heating milk too much, creating hot spots).

This machine heats the water for bottles of formula, thaws and heats bottles of breast milk, and also sterilizes bottles for your use whenever. I tried it out to heat bottles of breast milk and to sterilize the bottles. It was fairly easy to use for both purposes. To heat or thaw the bottles, you pour water in the top heating chamber and then put the bottle in. Just press the start button and it heats things up automatically. Unfortunately, I didn't feel that it did the job any better than placing the cold bottle of breast milk in a bowl of hot tap water.

What I did like about the machine, however, was the sterilization feature. I often worry about whether or not my bottles are actually clean. The Bib'expresso sterilization chamber -- which you use in your microwave -- made me feel that my bottles were really sterile and ready to be used.

I will continue to use the Bib'expresso for the bottle sterilization but I'm not sure how often I'll use it to heat my bottles. If I were a formula-feeding mom, however, I can see that this product would have a lot of benefit. It heats the water to the right temperature in only 90 seconds and that seems like it would be a real time saver.

The Beaba Bib'Expresso 3 in 1 Baby Bottle & Food Warmeris available at Amazon for $129.00. You can also find a list of retailers on the Beaba web site HERE.

Overall, I think this is an interesting product and I can see the value for moms who bottle feed 100%. If you bottle feed less than that, the product may not be worth the expense. The sterilization feature is nice and useful, however, and that alone may be worth it to some people.

I will put in a plug for checking out the Beaba web site because they have some very stylish products over there!


While Béaba provided me with a Bib'expresso to review, the opinions I've expressed here are solely my own and represent my honest viewpoint. Béaba,Clever Girls Collective and I promote Blog With Integrity.

Gotein giveaway

I have a Gotein portable protein drink giveaway going on now over at my other site. It runs through Wednesday night so check it out for your chance to win!

Great deal for Albany exercisers!

This just came through my email so I had to share for all of you local readers:

LivingSocial is advertising six fitness classes at The Court Club on Sand Creek Rd. for just $30! I'm more of a runner and home exerciser so the deal doesn't work for me, but for anyone looking to shake things up with a new class (or six!), it sounds like a great deal!

Looks like the deal will only be offered today but you can use the promotion through the end of the year.