Happy Pioneer Day!

We're here in the land of Deseret celebrating Pioneer Day today! It's kind of fun to be here with all the celebrations going on.

My friend Grettir wrote this hilarious post in honor of Pioneer Day a couple years ago. If you've never lived in Utah, you may chuckle and smile politely as you read it. If you've lived in Utah for any amount of time, you just might laugh out loud. Either way, I feel it's worth a read:

Oh, Pioneer Day

Kiva

My super cool brother and sister-in-law gave us a gift certificate to Kiva.org for Christmas. While I was going through my Inbox today, I realized we hadn't redeemed it yet. I logged on and found this lady:
Alexis owns a butcher shop in the Dominican Republic. She supports four kids with her shop and she is using this loan to grow her business.  She's using it to buy chickens to sell in her shop.  This is her second loan - the first was used to start the business.  She's turning a profit, but has so many customers now, she needs more chickens.  Way to go, Alexis!  I was pretty excited to find her and we used our gift certificate toward part of her loan. We're lucky to have the chance to help her.  I reloaded the page after loaning her our money and the entire loan was fulfilled.  So many great people out there helping others.  I love it.  

What is Kiva, you ask?  It's a microfinance website where people all over the world can connect with and loan money to small business owners in developing countries.  You get to see pictures and a short profile of the person you are loaning the money to and you can track the loan as it is being repaid.  Coolest feature?  It's a loan.  If you want, once the loan has been repaid, you can withdraw your money.  Even better?  Instead of withdrawing the money you can loan it to someone else.  You can just keep loaning and loaning the same money.  And if you want, you can give more money.   If you really get crazy about Kiva you can give people gift certificates like my brother and sister-in-law gave to us (it was a fantastic gift, and clutter-free, I might add!).  It's a great thing.  Head over there and help someone in Cambodia (or the developing country of your choice) start their own business!