Some of the best gifts I have ever received were donations made in my name to a worthy cause. One of my favorite charities is called the International Children’s Heart Foundation. This is a group that travels around the world performing life-saving heart surgery on children who live in places where that sort of medical care is almost impossible to obtain. You can find a more detailed description of the organization here.

A lot of you probably know people (or are the type of person) that would be just as happy having a donation to a charity made in your name as they would be receiving some sort of material gift. So for our 4th holiday giveaway, I will donate $50 to the ICHF in the name of a person chosen by the winner of this giveaway (if you win, the donation can be made in your name or the name of someone you choose so you can give this donation as your gift to them).

How to enter:
To enter this contest, just leave a comment on this post and indicate on whose behalf you would want me to make the donation if your entry is chosen (this can be you, a family member, a friend, whoever you want). The winner will be chosen randomly and I’ll then make a $50 donation in the name of the person chosen by the winner. This is a great organization and the winner will be able to give someone an awesome gift since they’ll be able to say that money was donated on behalf of the recipient to directly help save the lives of kids with life-threatening illnesses.

Official Rules:
1. You must already be, or become a subscriber to this site in order to participate in this contest.
2.  To enter, leave a comment on this post and indicate on whose behalf you would want the donation to be made (you don’t need to leave their full name in the comment, I’ll get that from you if you win).
3. A $50 donation will be made to the International Children’s Heart Foundation in the name of a person chosen by the winner.
4. The winner will be selected using random.org, based on the number of your comment.
6. This contest will end at 10pm on Friday, December 12th 2009.
7. Winners will be notified by email and posted to this site. Winners will have 48 hours from the time of notification to claim their prize. If the prize is not claimed within that time, an alternate winner will be chosen.
8. Each comment represents a single entry. Those entitled to multiple entries for performing “extra credit” must add a comment for each entry.

Extra Credit:

1. Follow me using the Google Friend Connect widget – 1 extra entry
2. Follow on Twitter and Tweet about this contest – 1 extra entry per day (include link to Tweet in your comment)
3. Blog about this contest – 3 extra entries (include a link to the post in your comment)
4. Enter any of the giveaways in progress on www.theartofbeingmom.com – 3 extra entries (include name of contest and your comment # )
5. Post a comment on any of the other posts on this site (from the past month) – 1 extra entry per post (leave post name and comment #)
6. Enter any of the other giveaways in progress on this site – 2 extra entries per giveaway (include name of contest and your comment #)

(remember, you have to leave a comment for EACH ENTRY when you do extra credit. We pick winners based on a drawing using the comment number. If you put 5 entries into a single comment, you defeat the whole purpose of the extra credit, since you aren’t increasing your chances of winning. No, I am not going to go through each entry and make sure that you’ve entered correctly, that is up to you.)

FTC Disclosures – I’m sorry, but up-yours-FTC, I despise the fact that I have to make sure to note that I have not received anything from this worthwhile charity so that I don’t have to worry about you fining me for not disclosing some un-ethical relationship. What a complete joke.