Casually Employed

My good friend Bearman at beartoons.com is doing his yearly Charity Challenge.

Yes it is that time of year once again.  The Bearman Cartoons Charity Challenge, where you do stuff and I donate money to worthy charities.  I have been extremely fortunate that both my wife and I are gainfully employed during this tough economic times so I am upping the ante this year.

This is the Fifth Year I have done this so far donating $2806 ($336 in 2009, $630 in 2010, $690 in 2011, $1150 in 2012) and it will run until the end of May.

Many of you know that I do this challenge each year to raise awareness of my blog while giving money to charities who need it.  Historically, this has been the majority of my advertising budget for the year so if you enjoy Bearman Cartoons, please help by spreading the word on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc and/or thumbing up on StumbleUpon or Reddit.

I have decided that this year I will divide evenly the amount of money donated between three charities up to $1500.  The fact that we hit the goal last year made me want to do more this year:

The first being the  Cincinnati FreeStore Foodbank. This charity does great things not only to feed those in need but also to help families get back on their feet in other ways.

The second charity is the Brandon C Gromada Head and Neck Cancer Foundation.   Many of you know that my friend Brandon passed away last year leaving his wife and six month old daughter.  His family set up this foundation to direct funds to research for better treatments.  This rare type of cancer also took the life of one of Brandon’s idols almost one year ago today – Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys.

And the third is of course one of my favorite charities,  Crayons to Computers.  It is a free store for teachers allowing them to stock up on school and art supplies for their students/classrooms.

But that is not all.   Once again, I am going to match dollar for dollar anything you donate to Crayons to Computers up to a max $500.  When donating just make it in Honor of Bearman Cartoons and they will know how to notify me.   So that is $2000 of my own money I am will to put up to get the word out about these causes.

I will donate the indicated amount for each thing that you do in the month of May:

• $10 – For any cartoonists who uses ME in a cartoon in their strip.  Use “BEARMAN” somewhere in the toon.  Maybe it’s a character’s name, a name on a bar sign in the background, integrating my green haired gravatar into a background character or even loosely as “Check out that Bear, man!”  Be sure to link back to this post so I know to include you in my tally.   I know some of you work with a buffer so if you plan to post after May just contact me and let me know and I will add it to the list.
• $5 – Add http://beartoons.com to your blog roll (for those who don’t already have it)
• $5 – Add a Bearman Cartoons Banner Ad (found here) on your site or if you already have one upgrade to a larger size.  Link it to http://beartoons.com
• $10 – Blog about my challenge to your readers and link back to this entry in your post – http://beartoons.com/2013/04/30/bearman-cartoons-charity-challenge-2013/
• $5 – Send a picture of yourself wearing a t-shirt from our shop OR send a picture that showcases that you are a BEARMANiac. Photos will be showcased in weekly updates and also appear ongoing in the BEARMANia section.    See below for my favorite fan pic from Lynn.
• $1 – Circle/Follow me on Google Plus – http://googleplus.beartoons.com.   Currently I have 29,130 followers.

If you add me to your blog roll, add/upgrade your banner, include this challenge in a post, please indicate in the comments. I’ll post a weekly update of the money raised and who did what to raise the money with links back to your site if applicable.

Thanks for your continued support.