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After one month of hair and fun filled activities, including regular follicular checkpoints, Mustaches on Ice, and a pub crawl, the stache adorned men of San Francisco are ready for the event of the growing season – the Stache Bash. The long-awaited festivities and sweetest stache competition will go down this Wednesday, December 17 at the Rickshaw Stop. Not only is this an occasion to celebrate the glorious mustaches that have matured over the last four weeks and the funds that San Francisco growers have raised to support classroom projects on DonorsChoose.org – over $55,000 so far, this is also a pageant to name the Sweetest Stache in San Francisco.

The top twenty-five growers who have raised the most money for classrooms will be eligible to compete, and the judges can also pick a few wild card “Mr. Congeniality” contestants from the crowd of approximately ninety growers. The competing growers will be judged on, among other things, their Stache-ku’s, the kiss-ability and foam retention capability of their staches. Along with the coveted title of Sweetest Stache, the winners will receive tickets from our friends, the Golden State Warriors.

All of the mustache growers throughout the country have endured questioning stares and ridicule for their facial transformations. In the process, they have collectively raised over $270,000 for students and teachers across the country, reaching over 146,000 students to date! Thanks to all the brave growers, patient significant others, and generous donors who have made this possible.

If you are in the Bay Area, come out to the Rickshaw Stop on Wednesday to cheer on the San Francisco stache champs. If not, you can still support the grower and classroom of your choice here.

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Sadly, the Blogger Challenge is over for 2008, but we have to give some love to the knitting bloggers who participated. This crafty, tech-savvy, philanthropic group of bloggers really came through and showed their support for public school classroom projects on DonorsChoose.org! A few notable knitting blogs deserve special mention:

Redshirt Knitting who, before the contest even began, got readers in on the action by asking them to vote for the type of projects that should be funded and ultimately raised $685!

Knitting Curmudgeon blogger pledged to knit and wear a hideous camo hat if her readers met the KC Fiber Kids’ goal!

Not to be outdone, Go Knit in Your Hat offered to sweeten the pot by drawing a name for a free skein of BBF sock yarn from amongst the donors.

Everyone got into the spirit of giving and was excited to help out classrooms and teachers. Knitting blog leaderboard champ Rose-Kim Knits, whose readers donated $871, summed it up best: “I know that knitting has enriched my life. It gives me comfort, a community, a sense of accomplishment and mastery. It has given me a career and great friends. Imagine being able to give these things to children in need.”

With people like the above bloggers on board, there is definitely hope for these children. Thanks so much to all of our bloggers for getting involved and giving back!

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Richard Wong teaches a Chinese bilingual class in San Francisco where 85% of the students are eligible for free or reduced lunch. However, Mr. Wong is not letting limited resources get in the way of teaching these third graders about science and nature and preparing them to be future stewards of the environment. He has posted a proposal on DonorsChoose.org that allows his students to participate in the Science and Nature for Underserved Youth program, which includes two class presentations, two field trips to the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park and a final field trip to a bird calling contest!

The students must write field reports of each visit and a summary of their science and nature experience. Lyanne Melendez of the Bay Area’s ABC News recently captured the students’ hands-on learning in action and you can see from their enthusiasm that there are some future biologists in the class! Mr. Wong explained that the parents have already had to chip in for basic supplies with their meager budgets, and, absent DonorsChoose.org, these eager learners would not have the opportunity to participate in the science and nature program.

You can view the ABC segment here.

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