Give Your Mom The Gift Of Giving Back Tomamawithlove Org

According to the LA Times, this year Americans alone will spend $14.6 billion on Mother's Day. Imagine if the gifts we gave made the world a better place for children & mamas everywhere.

By now, hopefully your calendar, a Twitter post or all the Mothers Day cards in the stores has reminded you that Mothers Day is right around the corner. My mom, always taught me that a gift I made just for her was what she really wanted - so this year I'm taking the time to do just that. She taught me I could change the world, and with my gift this year I plan to do that too. Actually my mom also reminded us you couldn't go wrong with buying her shoes, but that's another post for another time.

This year, my gift will be my personally created "heartspace" on To Mama With Love, and a donation in my mother's name that will help another mama who is even further away. In her village in Arusha, Tanzania, Mama Lucy (@MamaLucy) is literally a mother to an entire school that she envisioned and built using her money she made selling chickens as seed capital. Serving over 400 children, the school is already one of the top-ranked primary schools in her region - all because of a woman with a vision of a brighter future and an organization called Epic Change who helped generate thousands of donations via various social media outreach efforts.

To learn more about this exciting campaign, I'd like to invite you to join me as I moderate a discussion about To Mama With Love tomorrow night (THURSDAY) from 7:00 - 8:00 PM EST with Stacey Monk (@StaceyMonk), founder of Epic Change and Jen Consalvo (@noreaster), founder of Shiny Heart Ventures (plus one more guest I'm excited to announce tomorrow)!

Join us in a live chat to talk about #ToMamaWithLove and how we all can give back a little more each day. It will be an informative and fun panel debate and we'd love to see you. Thursday night, 7pm EST. Details here: http://bit.ly/tomamawithlove

Here's one story from a student at the school in Tanzania:

“I started learning at this school since I was six years old; Now I am 12. Mama Lucy is a founder of our school Shepherds Junior. She is a hard-working mama. She is kind. She loves us and I love her very much.” - Nihad, a student at Moma Lucy's school, echoing the sentiments of her fellow students.

Mama Lucy has another dream - to build a home on campus for some of the children who attend her school including a few of the TwitterKids of Tanzania. This Mother's Day, as you think about the mamas in your life, consider doing three things:

Create your own heartspace to show how much you love the momma's in your life. The donation to create your heartspace will go directly to Mama Lucy's real-life heartspace - a children's home in Arusha, Tanzania. Look around on the site at the new heartspaces popping up!
Post your special creation to your blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. encouraging others to create theirs as well. This is a chance to make a real difference in the world for our next generation.
Use #tomamawithlove in Twitter

Read more on Social Edge, Tech Cocktail and across the blogosphere!

Spreading the love, Sloane