HAPPY HOLIDAYS!  I am taking this shameless opportunity to remind everyone out there that there’s still time to take Blacksmith Institute’s $5 a Day December Holiday Challenge! 

So if you are still wondering what to get that somebody who has everything, why not get them the gift that can be everything for someone.

For the month of December, Blacksmith’s board will double your contribution.  So for the 9 days left in December, your $5 a day will add up to $45, which means that $90 will go towards supporting pollution cleanup. For that amount, you can save 2 lives and have money left over.  That’s because Blacksmith’s pollution cleanup can save a life for as little as $42.

And there are many polluted sites to clean.  We know this because over the past year, we have been building a global inventory of the world’s worst polluted places. The database is 1/3 completed. Here are some numbers behind the project to date:

* 140: the number of Blacksmith investigators currently assessing polluted sites around the world

* 20: the number of coordinating staff on the project

* 12: the number of regional training sessions that have been held around the world linking local investigators with international experts

* 40: the number of countries visited so far

* 60: the number of countries the inventory will cover

* 1,285: the number of polluted sites assessed to date

* 3,000: the number of polluted sites expected to be assessed