Vancouver’s first annual blogathon for charity is set to start 10 pm Friday, July 26 and will finish 9 pm Sunday, July 28. There are three shifts that blogs could sign up for and Invoke – memelabs parent company – has signed up for the Sunshine Shift – 10 pm Friday to 10 pm Saturday. This may be the first Vancouver specific blogathon, but it flows from a long tradition of blogathons. When the people who organized the previous blogathons could not organize it this year, Rebecca – Miss604 – stepped in and organized this years event.

Last year, Vancouver was represented by Rebecca and Raul, but Vancouver has really stepped up to the plate this year and as of the time I wrote this post, there are 13 Vancouver bloggers signed up - check out the list. There is still a week to sign up and I highly encourage all the Vancouver bloggers that haven’t signed up yet to do so.

A blogathon is a 24-hour period when you write a blog post every 30 minutes for a good cause. Yes, you read that right – we will be posting 48 blog posts! I’ve put the word out here and our team members have really stepped up to the plate – yes 48 posts from me may have gotten a bit boring. Thus far, Nadia Nascimento, David Tedman, Dario Meli, Ryan Holmes, Andre Liem, Murat Ayfer, James Wilson, and our very own bacon chocolate chip cookie baking Zuri Scrivens have volunteered to write at least one post. This list will most likely grow as the actual date grows closer.

Invoke has set a fund raising goal of $3000 for the blogathon. If you would like to support our efforts – which we would greatly appreciate – you can make a donation to the cause here (the page will be going live later today). Invoke has chosen a charity that is very close to our hearts The Lochmaddy Foundation. Invoke is connected to this charity through Dario Meli and David Tedman who sit on the board. Through the Lochmaddy Foundation, all donations will be directed to a community in Mali, West Africa. Families in N’Gouraba are working hard to improve their lives and the lives of their children through a special agricultural project. Your donation will empower and enable them to realize increased crops, more family income with new opportunities and a brighter future.

We are collecting donations through Plan Canada who are our partner on the ground there. I would like to thank them and specifically Heather for all of their hard work in helping Invoke bring this all together.

Pure Digital, the makers of the sexy Flip Video Recorders, has announced the upcoming launch of their 1 million video recorder Charity giveaway. The company plans to give away the video recorders over the next 5 years to non-profit organizations and NGO’s. The goal of the program is to put the power of video in the hands of these non-profits in order to help disseminate their message to a larger audience, highlight the need for their services, better communicate with donors, and broadcast their accomplishments around the world.

When non-profit organizations and other NGO’s purchase a Flip Video Recorder, Pure Digital will match their purchase one to one. Pure Digital has also made it so that people can make donations to their favorite non-profit or purchase the video recorder on their behalf. Pure Digitals vision is that video can help change the world by shining a spotlight on problems that need to be solved, opportunities that need to be seized, abuses that need to be corrected, and people who need to be extolled. More information about the campaign can be found on their campaign website.