Still looking for ideas? Habitat for Humanity in Charlotte, North Carolina, is offering to send your sweetheart a beautiful card with a donation given in his or her name. You can still order them here! Can you believe that you both can get fresh roses just for donating blood? American Red Cross is holding a promotion to trade clean blood for red roses – your blood can save the lives of women and children… find out more here. If all else fails, and you don’t think your Valentine will dig the top 7 donation ideas listed in this article, you can buy a Good Card here, and your sweetheart will be able to donate to the charity of his or her choice. Happy St. Valentine’s Day!

One in every 8 babies in the United States is born premature. A study conducted by Thomson Healcare in 2001 found that premature babies are fourteen times as costly as healthy, full-term babies. First year health costs for premies were in excess of $41,000, while first year health costs for full-term babies were under $3,000. Every year over 550,000 uninsured women give birth in the United States, many of whom would rather forgo doctor visits and expensive medication, then shell out cash for care (and the social costs are tremendous). Even insured parties are angry with the current system. Here is what one unsatisfied customer had to say in response to a New York Times Online debate on health care

Every day, over 160 women die in India from pregnancy and complications of child birth – the country’s maternal mortality rate makes up over 20% of total global maternal and child deaths. Despite successful efforts to decrease this number, many rural areas continue to experience over 500 deaths for every 100,000 live births. Save a Mother is a project dedicated to working directly with local communities and districts in Uttar Pradesh, one of the most effected areas in India, to help decrease infant and maternal mortality rates. Any preventable death is one too many.

This Saturday, May 20th, we had a really great turn-out at the Habitat for Humanity Charlotte Young Professionals build event, allowing us to finish the dry-walling most of the house by 12PM – sincerest thanks to all who came (especially the RedBull marketing team for providing the drinks and support), and I hope to see you all at the next event! Home ownership is one of the most essential aspects of a successful and enduring community and volunteers just like you help make working families realize this dream – great job!

This month’s Artists for Moms tags are dedicated to Sexual Assault Awareness (green/blue ribbon – President Obama Declares April to be Sexual Assault Awareness Month on April 8, 2009! See the official Presidential Proclamation here), Maternal Mortality awareness (white ribbon) , and the support of our troops (yellow ribbon). Do you have a tag request or need help with your own awareness campaign? Contact me for tips on how to get started with WordPress, Photoshop, Illustrator (and advice on CSS, HTML, MySQL, and Search Engine Optimization)!

Welcome to the Button Project! Every month I will come out with sets of fun buttons that can be easily posted on any blog or MySpace.com page. Currently, I am still working out the functionality of the text area (as it seems to be interfering with my Shadowbox plugin, and wreaking all kinds of weird havoc). Right now all buttons will automatically link back to PledgeForMoms.org so that any one who is interested can get their own. Of course, any user is welcome to change the link to one of their favorite Charity.

Take a moment to peruse the current news headlines on Maternal Mortality around the globe – unfortunately, women in many under-developed countries continue to die of diseases cured by modern science decades, if not centuries ago. The World Health Organization, AllAfrica.com, and UNICEF report on the state of the fight for better health standards with the following, chilling headlines: “The available statistics indicate that the maternal mortality rate in Mozambique dropped from 692 to 408 deaths per 100,000 live births between 1997 and 2002…”