I Dare You to Care!

As most of you who are reading this are aware, we do whatever we can to give back and try to encourage our Frikes (our lovely followers) to do the same. Paying it forward is more than a motto, it's a lifestyle, and we are always looking for ways to inspire and assist those who need it most. There are hundreds of requests for help or causes that we unfortunately don't have the time or the resources to take on, and there are so many people looking for inspiration and ideas to help out that we decided the best way to handle this would be our most recent project: I Dare You to Care!

Here's how it works. We have all heard of employers, businesses, and corporations offering to match donations in an effort to encourage fundraising and awareness. What we would like to do is encourage you to challenge each other in a similar way.

Choose something that is important to you that you are willing or able to do, and challenge the audience to meet your offer. Someone reading will reply to you, accepting your dare and will complete the action, and prove it with photos if possible. (We'd love to see pictures of caring in action!) Then, you complete the action, too! OR, look through the list of dares for an idea of how you can make a difference, and accept the dare. Complete the action and watch it unfold as your challenger now does the same!

This not only doubles the efforts, but inspires others in new and creative ways. Lots of people are looking for ideas of how to make a difference, and this turns it into a fun game where you can participate in something meaningful to you, encourage others to help along the way, and see twice the effort for your time and energy! It's a win-win.

For example, if you are willing to donate a backpack filled with school supplies to a local elementary school, you would comment on this blog or on the link on Facebook that you dare someone to fill a backpack with school supplies and donate it to a school. If you are the person who reads someone else's dare here or on the Facebook page and are willing to meet the challenge, you reply in comments that you accept their dare. (Make sure you comment in response to the dare so everyone knows what you are doing!) In this instance, you'd take a picture of the backpack and supplies, or yourself handing it to the school staff, so we have a picture of the sharing- what we'd like to do is share the pictures alongside one another so we can show everyone the impact of your caring in action!

You can challenge people to do anything that matters- share a status on their wall that raises awareness, volunteer at a food bank, meet your cash donation to a charity- ANYTHING! As long as you are willing and able to complete your own dare, anything positive and worthwhile is fair game. So get creative, and let's see what we can do!