Chip’s Not Dead Yet video contest winners announced!

The Chip’s Not Dead Yet video contest challenged Vancouverites to put their creativity to the test in coming up with their best idea for a theme wave.  It was a tight race to the finish, but we’ve established our winners.  Drumroll please…

Congratulations to:

Alicia Krywaniuk! Her video ‘Run like a Canuck,’ featuring her son, Ethan, won the People’s Choice Award with the most votes.  She will receive a cash prize of $1,000.  Well done, Alicia and Ethan! (And Go Canucks, go!)

AND

24 Hours Vancouver & Yoyomama for their video ‘do the PJ wave’ as well as the Infant Studies Centre at UBC, for their video ‘Childhood Character’. These amazing teams have both won a shared sponsorship of the family wave! Look for them at the race.

Memelabs would like to give a big thanks to everyone who participated in this campaign. It’s been tons of fun for us. We adore doing work which benefits non-profits and look forward to doing more of the same in the future.

The Chip’s Not Dead Yet memorial mile is being held on Saturday June 20th, 2009.  People will run, walk or parade one mile uphill to raise critical funds in support of the BC Children’s Hospital.  Registration is open. Get in there early for a discounted rate and to start fundraising now!

Posted by Jenn Lowther

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.