Last year, after the hurricane, I put some of my goodies on eBay and donated all the proceeds to a local charity in New Orleans. eBay has a pretty neat program that allows you to find charities and donate part of your eBay sales to them. It was really nice that they went for a higher amount than my regular auctions and in some small way was helping out for the disaster.

Today, in my e-mail I got this note:
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Congratulations, mouseangel!

To recognize and thank you for your commitment to helping others through your eBay Giving Works listings, you've been awarded a DonorsChoose gift certificate worth $80!

At DonorsChoose, public school teachers propose resources that their students need to learn.
Please spend this gift certificate to fund the proposal that speaks to you. Think of it as a shopping spree for students in need--where everything is free!

Best of all, you'll hear back from the kids in your classroom and know you've had a direct impact on their lives. On behalf of all those you help, we thank you for making a difference!

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Basically it was $80 that could be “spent” on a huge list of schools and programs needing funding. I’m a bit of a science geek, so I went looking for something science oriented and that hadn’t had many donations. I chose to support a geology class for a grade school in North Carolina.

I thought it was really cool of eBay to add donations to programs like that!!