Nothing But Nets

Earlier this week Bill Gates posted his second Annual Letter on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website. In it, he talks about the importance of innovation across a spectrum of issue areas – including malaria. He writes:

“Two years ago, Melinda and I challenged the health field to set a goal of eventually eradicating malaria. Because it is such a widespread disease, the foundation has backed a number of different types of innovations. In 2005 we helped fund a medium-risk pilot project in Zambia to test having most people in an area sleep under insecticide-treated bed nets and spray the inside of their house with insecticides. These interventions have proven to reduce malaria substantially, and other partners have now taken the lead on the large-scale delivery of these interventions.”

Now comes the shout out! That’s right…Bill Gates recognizes the impact that YOU are having by raising funds for life-saving bed nets:

“There has been a dramatic increase in bed net usage thanks to donations from individuals (some through church organizations and Nothing But Nets), the Global Fund, and rich governments.”

You can read the rest of Bill Gates’ Annual Letter here. 

Last month, one of our long-time supporters from Georgetown University and the Malaria Awareness Project, together with a number of campus organizations, spearheaded “Global Hip Hop 101, a Malaria Benefit Concert”, benefitting Nothing But Nets. Georgetown sponsored several West African artists to perform on campus with the goal of spreading awareness about African Hip-Hop as well as social justice and global health. 

Noting that malaria is such a major issue in Africa with far-reaching consequences, the Malaria Awareness Project selected Nothing But Nets as the beneficiary of their efforts. It was a night of music, fun, and creativity that helped to send life-saving bed nets to Africa!
 

Earlier this fall, one of our young supporters decided to take Nothing But Nets to the streets in a 22-mile bike ride. For her Bat Mitzvah project, Samantha Collins recruited support from family and friends to spread the buzz about malaria leading up to the lengthy bike race. 

She had been inspired to support Nothing But Nets after she learned that she could make a difference and send a bed net for just $10. In response to her efforts, she says, “Next thing I know, I am receiving generous checks to go towards nets in Africa!” Samantha raised enough to send 81 nets! 

As you have probably seen, the images of the devastating earthquake in Haiti are heartbreaking. The last 48 hours and the coming days continue to be critical to relief efforts.  While we have lost many UN friends and colleagues, the UN will stay on the front lines of the relief effort during this critical period.

At the UN Foundation, our team has joined these relief efforts, committing $1 million in aid to Haiti already, and is working with the United Nations to coordinate relief efforts through the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). 

Update from Haiti: Our own Dr. Dan Carucci (VP, Global Health at the UN Foundation) is delivering medical supplies in Port-au-Prince.

Last night, celebrity Ashton Kutcher, the #1 followed person on Twitter, won an award for “Favorite Web Celeb” at the People's Choice Awards. Ashton live streamed the event - and he even brought his camera up on stage to accept his award. Then came our favorite moment: he thanked Ray Chambers, UN Special Envoy for Malaria, and our partner, Malaria No More.

Ashton said the true reward was that 90,000 people in Senegal are sleeping under bed nets, as a result of his globally-followed race against CNN to reach a million followers on Twitter last April. Remember when he vowed to play ding-dong ditch (and then did!) on UN Foundation founder and Chairman Ted Turner if he beat CNN?

We applaud Ashton for spreading the word about malaria prevention, sending nets and saving lives, and supporting our partners on a national stage. Great job, Ashton!
 

Let’s begin 2010 with some exciting news: You helped to raise enough money to reach our goal of sending life-saving nets to more than one million refugees in Africa – congratulations! We are so proud to have supporters like you on the Nothing But Nets campaign.

In 2009 we teamed up with the United Nations Refugees Agency and began delivering your nets and Messages of Hope to families in camps in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Watch this special video to see a message of thanks from the refugees you’ve protected from malaria.

Thank you for sending nets and saving lives. Keep up the good work – we’re on our way to covering the African continent with nets!

On New Year’s Eve, Nothing But Nets supporters gathered at Skye Lounge in Washington, DC, to put on their party hats, sound their noisemakers, and ring in 2010 with a purpose. This celebration was unique: it was the only party in the city where guests helped send nets and save lives simply by joining in on the fun!

Thanks to our friends at Skye Lounge, a portion of ticket sales were donated to Nothing But Nets to purchase long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets for refugees in need.

Residents of the Nation’s Capital came dressed in sequins and ties to celebrate the biggest night of the year, all while helping the Nothing But Nets campaign deliver 160,000 life-saving bed nets to protect refugees in Africa by New Year Eve.

Emerging DC-area band Honor By August could kick off the New Year any number of ways, but they have decided to start on a generous note by raising awareness and an anticipated $10,000 to combat malaria.

This Friday, January 8th, the pop/rock band will benefit Nothing But Nets during their concert at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC. The Nothing But Nets team will be there and we hope you can join us! All ages are welcomed. The 9:30 Club is located at 814 V Street NW, Washington, DC. Tickets are $15 and are available through www.honorbyaugust.com. 

I got the chance to talk about this great event with the band's lead singer, Michael, on local television. Check out the clip here: it's the top one on the right on the page.

The clock is ticking. There are 24 hours and counting (more or less depending on where you live!) until the giant, glowing ball descends in Times Square, ringing in the New Year.

24 hours left to drop the New Year’s Eve ball on malaria. Have you sent a net and saved a life yet?

More than a year ago, we launched a campaign with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to send one million nets to refugees in malaria-endemic countries in Africa. Since then, we’ve delivered thousands of your nets and Messages of Hope to displaced families in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

Happy Holidays from the entire Nothing But Nets team. For all of you who are spending time with your family and friends, we hope you're relaxing and having fun!

During this time of year when the spirit of giving is all around us, we encourage you to give the gift of life today, and send a net to a refugee in Africa.

As many of us are excitedly trying on our new sweaters and scarves, sitting down to family dinners, or hoping for snow, refugees in Africa are waking up to another day in a camp, hoping they weren't bitten by a mosquito carrying malaria overnight. We think they should be waking up under a life-saving bed net instead, and starting the day with hope that their lives will someday soon return to normal. Wouldn't that be a great gift to wake up to?

Send a net and save a life today.

One more week until it’s time to toast to the New Year – hasn’t 2009 been a great year? I think it has. But what’s making this year end so great is that we have some amazing support rolling in to help us reach our goal of sending 160,000 nets to refugees by 2010. This just in: a generous anonymous donor will match your gifts up to $200,000 to help us get to the finish line!

Inspired by Rick Reilly’s $25,000 match and the NBA Cares and HP special offer to give NBA game tickets to Nothing But Nets donors, our anonymous donor was eager to get in the game. Within 24 hours, donors met Rick’s match. So $200,000 is nothing, right? We're close to our goal -- this is your chance to turn your $10 into $20! 

Still need a resolution for the New Year? How about saving lives? That’s right – you can send a net and save a life this New Year’s Eve! The United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets is rolling out the orange carpet for the biggest night of the year, and YOU are invited to the celebration.

On December 31st, join Nothing But Nets and UN Foundation staff at Skye Lounge in Washington, DC to watch the ball drop, and a portion of your ticket price will go towards the purchase of a bed net to protect a refugee in Africa from malaria. General admission is $75 for the open bar and appetizers between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., or you can include dinner as well for $100.

Click here to buy your tickets now, and be sure to use the promo code: NBN2010 so that $10 of your ticket cost sends a net and saves a life!

Get a date and save a life. That was Ashley Harrington’s idea to raise funds and awareness for Nothing But Nets at her school in Minnesota.

Ashley and her classmates at Minnesota State University Morehead (MSUM) received a compelling assignment in their leadership class: find a charity and plan a fundraiser. Ashley had seen a commercial featuring Nothing But Nets Champion Gavin DeGraw talking about the devastating effects of malaria in Africa, and knew right away what charity she wanted to support – Nothing But Nets!

Her group began planning a series of fundraisers and events to raise awareness for the cause across campus. They sold buttons at the student union and held a shoot-out at halftime of a MSUM basketball game, but their main event was the first ever Student Organization Auction.

The World Health Organization (WHO) released their 2009 World Malaria Report today, with good news: one-third of the 108 malaria-ravaged countries reduced malaria cases by more than 50 percent in 2008, compared to 2000. That’s a huge drop — malaria cases cut in half in less than a decade!

We just returned from a briefing on Capitol Hill in which the United Nations Foundation’s Vice President for Global Health, Dr. Dan Carucci, alongside Congressman Donald Payne and the Malaria and Neglected Infectious Disease Caucus, Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer of the President’s Malaria Initiative, and Ambassador Mark Green with the Malaria Policy Center, presented these encouraging findings. As Admiral Ziemer pronounced: “This is a good news story!”

A few years ago I wrote a Sports Illustrated column that inspired the United Nations Foundation to create Nothing But Nets to fight malaria. In only three years, hundreds of thousands of supporters like YOU have raised nearly $30 million and sent close to three million nets to children, pregnant women, and refugees in Africa. Wow.

We’re saving lives!

This year Nothing But Nets has teamed up with the UN Refugee Agency to protect more than one million displaced families in Africa from malaria, the number one killer of refugees. Good news – we’re almost there! We need 160,000 nets before December 31, 2009, to reach our goal. To get us to the finish line, I’m going to match your donation - net for net - up to a total of $25,000.

Still not enough? How about a free-throw? To make the deal even sweeter, our partners at NBA Cares will throw in two free tickets to an NBA game for every $10 donation. Send a Net. Save a Life. See a Game. That’s a full day, right?!

Seriously, refugees need nets, and need your help to get them — give the gift of life this holiday season and help Nothing But Nets drop the New Year’s Eve ball on malaria.

Wow, what a weekend! Thanks to the incredible support of our friends at MLS W.O.R.K.S., we were able to attend the fabulous events leading up to the astounding 2009 MLS Cup game held in Seattle. The weekend began with the Seattle Sounders welcome party held at the Seattle Aquarium. The venue was perfect – a great representation of the Emerald City where the Sounders FC are always greeted by a packed stadium of enthusiastic fans. My favorite was the scuba-diver dressed in Sounders FC gear playing soccer in the large aquarium, posing for photos, and having a great time dancing to his own music in the water. 

The next evening held the Commissioner’s Celebration, a cocktail event hosted by Major League Soccer Commissioner and Nothing But Nets supporter, Don Garber. Don showed a highlight reel of the past season’s games and spoke of the amazing support and enthusiasm for soccer and how it continues to grow. To underscore this, he honored U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati, another malaria champion, with the Commissioner’s Award for his life-long commitment to the sport of soccer and the pivotal role he has had in its expansion within the U.S.

Elizabeth McKee Gore, the UN Foundation’s executive director of global partnerships, just wrapped up an extensive trip to Ethiopia, which brought her from rural villages to urban centers to everywhere in between. And while it’s hard to re-create such a dynamic trip in words, Elizabeth is doing exactly that with a blog series on her incredible experiences.

Elizabeth’s on-the-ground stories capture just how far the work of the UN Foundation and its UN partners reaches, whether in health or education, refugees or adolescent girls, peacekeeping or clean water. Take a minute to read these posts, and learn how the United Nations Foundation is creating a more peaceful, prosperous, and just world. Blogs five and six in the series focus on distributing life-saving bed nets to refugees in UN Refugee Agency camps.

It’s the diagnosis no one wants to hear: terminal brain tumor. If my doctor handed me this diagnosis, I’d panic and immediately start making a list of about a thousand things I still wanted to accomplish in the time I had left – and ending poverty in Africa probably wouldn’t make the list. Then again, I’m not Laurence Carolin.

Laurence was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor when he was just 13. When the Make-A-Wish Foundation learned of Laurence’s condition, they offered to make one his dreams come true. Originally, he wanted to meet the members of his favorite band, U2, but after some consideration, Laurence decided he had bigger priorities. What he really wanted was to save lives. Instead of arranging a meeting with Bono and the gang, Laurence asked Make-A-Wish to donate the money they would have spent on him to the United Nations Foundation to treat AIDS, TB, and malaria. He was quoted as saying, “I can accept dying, but I don't want to die before there's an end to extreme poverty in Africa.”

The holiday shopping season has just begun, and to spread the holiday (and malaria) buzz this year, we’re offering you 50% off your order at the Nothing But Nets Store from today through Monday. That’s four days for you to buy Buzzkill t-shirts, wristbands and hats at half off!

Use the coupon code below and enter it into the promotion code box when viewing your cart at the store. (See the screenshot at the bottom of this post to show you where that is.)

As I prepare for Thanksgiving this week, images of Joyce, her newborn daughter Priscilla, and of the hundreds of other refugees we met in Uganda fill my head and move me to think about the meaning of gratitude.

There was no shortage of thanks from the women and children in the refugee camps in Uganda. These families were grateful for a simple bed net – something we are fortunate enough not to need. But as I recall handing over these nets and messages of hope, I am the one who feels fortunate; fortunate to be able to help others in need.