Friday, September 23, 2011

Filanthropy Friday

This is just the coolest charity and it's my first International transaction (Philippine Pesos).  I have Jonathan, Liz's husband, to thank for finding this uplifting charity. Thank you! Thank you!  It's been a difficult couple of weeks and this is a great find.

The charity is called A Liter of Light (or Isang Litrong Liwanag).  Their slogan is - Bringing Light To The Poor One Liter At A Time.

Students at MIT (I totally got accepted here) developed a way to provide very inexpensive lighting by using a plastic Coke bottle - a Solar Bottle Bulb.  A Liter of Light's focus is bringing this type of technology to developing and poor countries.  

The really cool part is how they do it - they cut a hole in the roof, fill up a plastic Coke (or Pepsi if you so desire) bottle with water and a little bleach, and then install the Coke bottle in the roof (they do a little sealant so that rain doesn't get through the metal roof).  When the sun light hits the bottle, it literally fills a room with light - as much as an electric bulb (55 watts).

The video is amazing! The people who are receiving these lights (right now, many in the Philippines) have so much joy for something so simple. 

I wish there was a way for me to inexpensively ship all of our plastic bottles of Dr. Pepper to them, because we have a lot, but instead I donated 1,000 Philippine Pesos, (conversion: 1 U.S. Dollar = 42.4496 Philippine Pesos) approximately $23.56. 

2 comments:

  1. LOVE IT! I am gong to donate too! How many bottles does 1,000 pesos buy them?

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  2. Glad you liked it! Living in darkness all the time would really stink and it's great of you to donate.

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