DonorsChoose 2007--final call!

Edited to add: we've reached our goal! Thank you so much to all who participated; if others would still like to donate, Janet has a list of other blogger challenges--and remember that every completed challenge gets a 10% completion bonus from DonorsChoose, stretching your donation farther. Finally, donors--don't forget to register for prizes!

The Scienceblogs DonorsChoose challenge is wrapping up--the contest officially ends at the end of the month. So far readers here have donated $1,590 to help out teachers and students, largely in districts with high poverty levels. I want to first send out a hearty thank you to those of you who've donated, whether it was a few dollars or a much larger chunk of change. We've already exceeded the amount raised here last year, but we're not quite finished yet. If we make it to the $2000 mark (just another $410 to go), DonorsChoose will donate an extra 10% to fund additional projects as a completion bonus.

5 of the projects I selected are already fully funded, but 2 of the original ones still need help. These are "The Human Body: Learning by Heart!", requesting stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs (only needs $68 to be fully funded), and "Putting the "Why?" in Science", which needs an additional $318 to purchase basic science supplies--graduated cylinders, petri dishes, beakers, etc. Since these together don't quite equal my fundraising goal, I added one additional project as well:

"Scope It Out!"

Needs: $347 (50% funded)
Asking for: Microscope and slide collection (district is 50% low income)

Science is very popular among this eager group...always exploring and asking questions. A dependable, high quality microscope would be the perfect companion for most of our scientific inquiries. We would like to see the world up close and magnified. Prepared slides would enable us to look at different Kingdoms in the classification system, flora and fauna. We look forward to preparing our own slides too! This will be an integral part of all of our life science studies in biology and botany.

I know many of you read multiple blogs here and may have donated elsewhere, but for those of you who've not kicked in a few dollars yet, any amount you can give will make an impact. As I mentioned, the one project only needs $68 to be fully funded, and if we raise the $490 to meet the original challenge goal, we can fund additional projects with the extra $200 from DonorsChoose. Plus, I already mentioned I have copies of Arthur Allen's "Vaccine" to give away to donors, and Seed is kicking in some loot as well, including T-shirts, mugs, and an iPod Nano.

Thanks again for your generosity so far, and look for the final donations tally later in the week! More science coming up tomorrow...