Nothing But Nets

The clock is ticking. There are 24 hours and counting (more or less depending on where you live!) until the giant, glowing ball descends in Times Square, ringing in the New Year.

24 hours left to drop the New Year’s Eve ball on malaria. Have you sent a net and saved a life yet?

More than a year ago, we launched a campaign with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to send one million nets to refugees in malaria-endemic countries in Africa. Since then, we’ve delivered thousands of your nets and Messages of Hope to displaced families in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

Happy Holidays from the entire Nothing But Nets team. For all of you who are spending time with your family and friends, we hope you're relaxing and having fun!

During this time of year when the spirit of giving is all around us, we encourage you to give the gift of life today, and send a net to a refugee in Africa.

As many of us are excitedly trying on our new sweaters and scarves, sitting down to family dinners, or hoping for snow, refugees in Africa are waking up to another day in a camp, hoping they weren't bitten by a mosquito carrying malaria overnight. We think they should be waking up under a life-saving bed net instead, and starting the day with hope that their lives will someday soon return to normal. Wouldn't that be a great gift to wake up to?

Send a net and save a life today.

One more week until it’s time to toast to the New Year – hasn’t 2009 been a great year? I think it has. But what’s making this year end so great is that we have some amazing support rolling in to help us reach our goal of sending 160,000 nets to refugees by 2010. This just in: a generous anonymous donor will match your gifts up to $200,000 to help us get to the finish line!

Inspired by Rick Reilly’s $25,000 match and the NBA Cares and HP special offer to give NBA game tickets to Nothing But Nets donors, our anonymous donor was eager to get in the game. Within 24 hours, donors met Rick’s match. So $200,000 is nothing, right? We're close to our goal -- this is your chance to turn your $10 into $20! 

Still need a resolution for the New Year? How about saving lives? That’s right – you can send a net and save a life this New Year’s Eve! The United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets is rolling out the orange carpet for the biggest night of the year, and YOU are invited to the celebration.

On December 31st, join Nothing But Nets and UN Foundation staff at Skye Lounge in Washington, DC to watch the ball drop, and a portion of your ticket price will go towards the purchase of a bed net to protect a refugee in Africa from malaria. General admission is $75 for the open bar and appetizers between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., or you can include dinner as well for $100.

Click here to buy your tickets now, and be sure to use the promo code: NBN2010 so that $10 of your ticket cost sends a net and saves a life!

Get a date and save a life. That was Ashley Harrington’s idea to raise funds and awareness for Nothing But Nets at her school in Minnesota.

Ashley and her classmates at Minnesota State University Morehead (MSUM) received a compelling assignment in their leadership class: find a charity and plan a fundraiser. Ashley had seen a commercial featuring Nothing But Nets Champion Gavin DeGraw talking about the devastating effects of malaria in Africa, and knew right away what charity she wanted to support – Nothing But Nets!

Her group began planning a series of fundraisers and events to raise awareness for the cause across campus. They sold buttons at the student union and held a shoot-out at halftime of a MSUM basketball game, but their main event was the first ever Student Organization Auction.

The World Health Organization (WHO) released their 2009 World Malaria Report today, with good news: one-third of the 108 malaria-ravaged countries reduced malaria cases by more than 50 percent in 2008, compared to 2000. That’s a huge drop — malaria cases cut in half in less than a decade!

We just returned from a briefing on Capitol Hill in which the United Nations Foundation’s Vice President for Global Health, Dr. Dan Carucci, alongside Congressman Donald Payne and the Malaria and Neglected Infectious Disease Caucus, Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer of the President’s Malaria Initiative, and Ambassador Mark Green with the Malaria Policy Center, presented these encouraging findings. As Admiral Ziemer pronounced: “This is a good news story!”

A few years ago I wrote a Sports Illustrated column that inspired the United Nations Foundation to create Nothing But Nets to fight malaria. In only three years, hundreds of thousands of supporters like YOU have raised nearly $30 million and sent close to three million nets to children, pregnant women, and refugees in Africa. Wow.

We’re saving lives!

This year Nothing But Nets has teamed up with the UN Refugee Agency to protect more than one million displaced families in Africa from malaria, the number one killer of refugees. Good news – we’re almost there! We need 160,000 nets before December 31, 2009, to reach our goal. To get us to the finish line, I’m going to match your donation - net for net - up to a total of $25,000.

Still not enough? How about a free-throw? To make the deal even sweeter, our partners at NBA Cares will throw in two free tickets to an NBA game for every $10 donation. Send a Net. Save a Life. See a Game. That’s a full day, right?!

Seriously, refugees need nets, and need your help to get them — give the gift of life this holiday season and help Nothing But Nets drop the New Year’s Eve ball on malaria.

Wow, what a weekend! Thanks to the incredible support of our friends at MLS W.O.R.K.S., we were able to attend the fabulous events leading up to the astounding 2009 MLS Cup game held in Seattle. The weekend began with the Seattle Sounders welcome party held at the Seattle Aquarium. The venue was perfect – a great representation of the Emerald City where the Sounders FC are always greeted by a packed stadium of enthusiastic fans. My favorite was the scuba-diver dressed in Sounders FC gear playing soccer in the large aquarium, posing for photos, and having a great time dancing to his own music in the water. 

The next evening held the Commissioner’s Celebration, a cocktail event hosted by Major League Soccer Commissioner and Nothing But Nets supporter, Don Garber. Don showed a highlight reel of the past season’s games and spoke of the amazing support and enthusiasm for soccer and how it continues to grow. To underscore this, he honored U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati, another malaria champion, with the Commissioner’s Award for his life-long commitment to the sport of soccer and the pivotal role he has had in its expansion within the U.S.