Blogathon Vancouver 2010, Save the Date

Blogathon is returning to Vancouver this year as I will once again be hosting an on-location event August 21st.

Kristi Ferguson from Fraser Valley Pulse will be heading up Blogathon Fraser Valley on the same day with another on-location event so we’ll have the region well-covered. Raul will also be helping me with the Vancouver event as we’ll be celebrating our 5th year of Blogathon’ing together.

How it works
Bloggers sign up to blog for 24 hours straight, publishing an original post every 30 minutes (think walk-a-thon or spell-a-thon etc.) They do this marathon blogging in order to raise funds for the charity of their choice. The collect donations online to help keep them going.

We will be arranging CanadaHelps donation pages for all registered Blogathon Vancouver & Blogathon Fraser Valley participants so that all donations go directly to the charities of choice automatically, online. The campaigns are a challenge but it’s absolutely worth the time to support a cause in which you truly believe — using your blog for social good.

History
Since 2000, Blogathon has been run during the month of July through an online community and pledge system on Blogathon.org. We’ve taken this model and customized it, creating the first on-location events (in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley) in 2009.

In 2006 I participated after seeing Alanah and Barbara (the only two participants in BC I knew of at the time). In 2007 I had my own campaign up and running alongside Raul’s. In 2008 we then had 11 local bloggers sign on for Blogathon and along with my friends Duane and Raul we raised $10,000 for our causes.

Photo credit: Tiny Bites on Flickr

In 2009, the numbers grew to over 30 local participants and close to $20,000 raised by bloggers collectively for each of their causes.

I’m so excited to see how it’s caught on across the province over the years. In my first year I raised about $500 for the Surrey Food Bank and with my last 3 campaigns my generous readers have helped me raise about $15,000 for the Union Gospel Mission.

For 2010
This year we’re bumping Blogathon to August in order to hopefully have more participants (who won’t be on vacation) and more of an audience to help keep us going for 24 straight hours of blogging.

Our on-location events will have wifi, food (for sponsorship please contact us), and a community of bloggers all going through the same campaign — which helps when you start losing steam at 3:00am after blogging for 17 hours straight. Last year we were at Workspace and we enjoyed treats from various sponsors, visits from non-profits that were being supported, and even a private lightning-lit concert from Mojave.

Photo credit: Duane Storey on Flickr

This post is to serve as a “Save the Date” for August 21st so please stay tuned to BlogathonVancouver.com for updates and information. We will be posting information on how to sign up, how to get your donation page, and the venues for the on-location events (in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley) shortly.

The tag for the event will be #Blogathon10 (on Twitter or Flickr).

We hope you’ll join us and use your blog to help support the cause of your choice.

Update Please note Blogathon.org (the global event run by other bloggers) is NOT running this year. Blogathon Vancouver and Blogathon Fraser Valley ARE happening this year per this announcement. We’ll have a sign-up site available soon but please stay tuned to BlogathonVancouver.com for updates.