Guest Blogger: Sarah Lenssen from #Ask5for5
Family photos by Mike Fiechtner Photography

Thank you Richter Web Design and nearly 150 other bloggers from around the world for allowing me to share a story with you today, during Social Media Week.

A hungry child in East Africa can’t wait. Her hunger consumes her while we decide if we’ll respond and save her life. In Somalia, children are stumbling along for days, even weeks, on dangerous roads and with empty stomachs in search of food and water. Their crops failed for the third year in a row. All their animals died. They lost everything. Thousands are dying along the road before they find help in refugee camps. 

At my house, when my three children are hungry, they wait minutes for food, maybe an hour if dinner is approaching. Children affected by the food crisis in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia aren’t so lucky. Did you know that the worst drought in 60 years is ravaging whole countries right now, as you read this? Famine, a term not used lightly, has been declared in Somalia. This is the world’s first famine in 20 years.12.4 million people are in need of emergency assistance and over 29,000 children have died in the last three months alone. A child is dying every 5 minutes. It it estimated that 750,000 people could die before this famine is over. Take a moment and let that settle in.

The media plays a major role in disasters. They have the power to draw the attention of society to respond–or not. Unfortunately, this horrific disaster has become merely a footnote in most national media outlets. News of the U.S. national debt squabble and the latest celebrity’s baby bump dominate headlines. That is why I am thrilled that nearly 150 bloggers from all over the world are joining together today to use the power of social media to make their own headlines; to share the urgent need of the almost forgotten with their blog readers. Humans have the capacity to care deeply for those who are suffering, but in a situation like this when the numbers are too huge to grasp and the people so far away, we often feel like the little we can do will be a drop in the ocean, and don’t do anything at all.

When news of the famine first hit the news in late July, I selfishly avoided it. I didn’t want to read about it or hear about it because I knew I would feel overwhelmed and uncomfortable. I wanted to protect myself. I knew I would need to do something if I knew what was really happening. You see, this food crisis is personal. I have a 4-year-old son and a 1 yr-old daughter who were adopted from Ethiopia and born in regions now affected by the drought. If my children still lived in their home villages, they would be two of the 12.4 million. My children: extremely hungry and malnourished? Gulp. I think any one of us would do anything we could for our hungry child. But would you do something for another mother’s hungry child?

My friend and World Vision staffer, Jon Warren, was recently in Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya–the largest refugee camp in the world with over 400,000 people. He told me the story of Isnino Siyat, 22, a mother who walked for 10 days and nights with her husband, 1 yr-old-baby, Suleiman, and 4 yr.-old son Adan Hussein, fleeing the drought in Somalia. When she arrived at Dadaab, she built the family a shelter with borrowed materials while carrying her baby on her back. Even her dress is borrowed. As she sat in the shelter on her second night in camp she told Jon, “I left because of hunger. It is a very horrible drought which finished both our livestock and our farm.” The family lost their 5 cows and 10 goats one by one over 3 months, as grazing lands dried up. “We don’t have enough food now…our food is finished. I am really worried about the future of my children and myself if the situation continues.”

Will you help a child like Baby Suleiman? Ask5for5 is a dream built upon the belief that you will.

That something I knew I would need to do became a campaign called #Ask5for5 to raise awareness and funds for famine and drought victims. The concept is simple, give $5 and ask five of your friends to give $5, and then they each ask five of their friends to give $5 and so on–in nine generations of 5x5x5…we could raise $2.4 Million! In one month, over 750 people have donated over $25,000! I set up a fundraiser at See Your Impact and 100% of the funds will go to World Vision, an organization that has been fighting hunger in the Horn of Africa for decades and will continue long after this famine has ended. Donations can multiply up to 5 times in impact by government grants to
help provide emergency food, clean water, agricultural support,
healthcare, and other vital assistance to children and families suffering in the Horn.

I need you to help me save lives. It’s so so simple; here’s what you need to do:

1. Donate $5 or more on this page (http://seeyourimpact.org/members/ask5for5)
2. Send an email to your friends and ask them to join us.
3. Share #Ask5for5 on Facebook and Twitter!

I’m looking for another 100 bloggers to share this post on their blogs throughout Social Media Week. Email me at ask5for5@gmail.com if you’re interested in participating this week.

A hungry child doesn’t wait. She doesn’t wait for us to finish the other things on our to-do list, or get to it next month when we might have a little more money to give. She doesn’t wait for us to decide if she’s important enough to deserve a response. She will only wait as long as her weakened little body will hold on…please respond now and help save her life. Ask 5 for 5.

Thank you on behalf of all of those who will be helped–you are saving lives and changing history.

p.s. Please don’t move on to the next website before you donate and email your friends right now. It only takes 5 minutes and just $5, and if you’re life is busy like mine, you probably won’t get back to it later. Let’s not be a generation that ignores hundreds of thousands of starving people, instead let’s leave a legacy of compassion. You have the opportunity to save a life today!
 

I have been busy wrapping up a site that has been in the works for nearly 6 months and it is getting ready for launch this month… can’t wait!  A great client and a great site, but more about that another day.

Here are my search engine rankings for the term ‘Seattle Web Designer’ for the month of June, 2011:

• Google – Page 5
• Bing – Page 9
• Yahoo – Page 9

So that’s a heavy hit on Bing and Yahoo considering I was once as high as page 4.  I need to write more, and get more quality traffic to my sites!

Gregg

I get these monthly newsletters from Adobe that tell all about the upcoming education events.  It drives me nuts that a company like Adobe, that makes such amazing products for digital design, and employs so many industry leaders and experts, would continually commit such an obnoxious oversight on their text reflection.

Do you see it?  The tail on the letter ‘y’ does not work with their reflection effect.  The reflection effect would lead you to believe that all the letters up until the ‘y’ are sitting evenly on a glossy black surface.  Once you get to the ‘y’ the effect is broken because since it has a tail, it couldn’t possibly be sitting in line with the other letters.  If it were, it would oddly be sitting higher and the very bottom of the letter would be in line with the very bottom of the other letters.  Which would make it look more like FebruarY.  They further complicate the issue by allowing the portion of the letter ‘y’ that is in line with the other letter bottoms to reflect… does that mean the tail is laying flat on this reflective surface?

They could fix the issue by using a different typeface that allows the bottom of all letters to align or they could use all caps in the current typeface. Or of course, they could eliminate the reflection effect altogether.

I know I am being a bit nit-picky but this has been going on for months and months and from a company like Adobe whose customers and employees are in the digital design, typography, web design, etc… professions, it just makes no sense.

There, I feel better now.

Gregg – http://richterwebdesign.com

I have worked in technology for over 10 years (mostly in support), and a couple of years ago got the itch to become a “web designer”.  I’ve often thought of myself as having a decent eye for design (does anyone ever think they have a bad eye for design?), and am quite comfortable with technology and gettin’ my learn on.  So it was that I made my way to the University of Washington to learn all about HTML, CSS, client / server side scripting, databases, and even an entire 9 month course on just a couple Adobe products.  Turns out there is an endless sea of things to learn for web design and I have barely scratched the surface.

So here we are now.  Richter Web Design, LLC is official and legit and I am looking for 2010 to be a great year for my personal growth as a developer/designer and a great year for me to start building my portfolio 1 client at a time.  This blog will chronicle the obstacles, questions, learning’s, and successes I encounter along the way and will hopefully help me become a better writer and stop me from doing things like start multiple sentences with the word ‘so’.

Happy Web Building
Gregg – http://richterwebdesign.com