This is how it is done. The Todd Stiefel Foundation is rallying freethinkers to help raise money for cancer research, sponsoring the Light The Night Walk through the Foundation Beyond Belief, to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. They are doing this as a secular organization, for a secular cause, and they are making an effort to clearly define this as a freethinker-led initiative…although, of course, religious people will be warmly welcomed as friends and colleagues if they wish to join in.
I’ll be promoting this more in the near future and will be deciding whether to support a team or create one of our own (there is none near Morris, Minnesota), but I’ve got to hold off a bit — we’re in the last two weeks of the semester and grading and other work is consuming everything right now — but I wanted to let everyone know now. Don’t wait for me, get out there and see if there is a team near you that you can join.
The goal is to raise a million dollars for cancer research. I know we can do it.
I’ll have to go with virtual support, but that I will do most gladly and I’ll give as much as I possibly can.
Someone I know is involved with Out of the Darkness, which raises money for suicide prevention. OotD participants walk through the night into the light of dawn, rather than light up the night, but I’m struck by how two different charities have chosen to make “banishing the darkness” literal.
Instead of giving something up for Lent, I gave for Lent
This particular endeavour may be completely secular, but not all of Foundation Beyond Belief’s efforts are. They do what amounts to “interfaith” projects too, by funding religious charities.
jesuslovesbags #3 – I love that idea!