I’m sure my conservative family will have a major “eye-rolling” festival after watching this video, but it did get me thinking. There are only a couple of charities or service venues that I feel passionately about and the most important one is literacy. As a person who loves words, books and language I want everybody to read. With reading comes thought and with thought comes power. When you teach somebody to read, you teach them to dream. Every year I tell myself that I will volunteer for a literacy program, but this year I’m going to make it happen.

I pledge to teach others to read.
I pledge to introduce myself to my neighbors (whom I’ve lived next to for 8 years)
I pledge to use less water while living in a state dogged by drought

Watch this video, and then tell me what you pledge.

** Yes, I hate it when celebrities try to tell me to be charitable when they have hoards of money and it seems hypocritical. And yes, who cares what these people think anyways. And yes, it is Barack Obama propaganda. Yes, I understand all of those things. Please don’t feel compelled to point that out to me. But, I’m also mature enough to look beyond all that and say “you know what, they are right. We can all do more and should do more”. I’m sure regardless of political affiliation we can all agree on that, and if we can’t then we’re in more serious trouble than we all realize.**