HoHoTO

It’s nice to do something nice for others.  But sometimes, it’s nice to do something for ourselves too.  Especially during the HoHoTO season when we’re all giving and helping the world suck a little less.

Well today’s 13 Days of HoHoTO How To Help Tip lets you do something special for yourself by using our sponsor’s Promo Codes to raise a little more money for Daily Bread!

Rent Frock Repeat, get yourself the hottest frocks for all your parties at a fraction of the price of using the following promo code:

From now to Dec. 15, use promo code HOHOTO at checkout and Rent Frock Repeat will donate 10% of that rental to HoHoTO – rent a dress, donate the rest!
rentfrockrepeat.com

Ohhh Canada, for a little something extra under the tree or in the bed:

Buy sex toys & raise funds for #hohoto (no joke!) Use code #hohoto at Ohhh Canada before Dec 16 and $1 will be donated to HoHoTO and you’ll also save a $1
www.ohhhcanada.ca

Homestars, save yourself and others from home owner’s nightmares and focus on the joy of the season:

Homestars will donate $20 to HoHoTO when you write 2 reviews.
Just take 5 minutes and tell other about your experiences – good or bad — on any contractor, repair-man or service provider you’ve hired.  The more your write, the more you raise!
Click here to get started
homestars.com

What? You want to run a HoHoTO food drive?! That’s GREAT!

HoHoTO is all about the spirit of pulling together (especially at the last minute!) and doing good for the local community.  The Daily Bread Food Bank needs you more than ever this year – so thanks for stepping up!

We’ve made it as simple as can be for you to organize your company, team, group — whatever you’re a part of where people are working together — for a fun, fast and oh-so-needed food drive.

Here’s your easy-peasy step-by-step ‘how to’ for running your own food drive. Start today, every little bit helps!

1. Get started! Decide on a date (now until December 15th!) and set up where you’ll collect your donations. Jazz up some boxes and containers with HoHoTO decor to hold all the goodies you’ll be getting. Good places to get boxes are at the LCBO or major supermarkets, or try using a large FedEx/UPS shipping box.  Laundry baskets will work too!

2. Enroll your food drive with the Daily Bread Food Bank by filling out the  participation form or just get started (you can connect with DBFB at the end of your drive too).

3. Get folks on board to help with your food drive (employees, customers, members, etc.) via a quick email, posters, flyers. etc. Daily Bread has some pre-made posters you can grab off their website here.

4. Use email, web, Facebook,and Twitter to promote your food drive. Let us know about your food drive and we’ll tell everyone how awesome you are for helping out!

5. Start collecting food. Make sure you let everyone know about Daily Bread’s most needed food items including peanut butter, rice, dry pasta and sauce, baby formula and food, dried or canned beans, canned tuna and meat, canned fruits and vegetables. Try a theme per day for a week, Monday is Italian (pasta and sauce!), Tuesday is Farmer’s Market (canned fruits and veggies), etc.

6. Smile. Feel good about making a difference. (Yup, it’s that easy!)   Don’t forget to grab your tickets to HoHoTO so you can celebrate your successful food drive at the best party of the year!

7. Get your donations to DBFB.  At the end of your drive, bring the food you’ve collected when you come to #HoHoTO at the Mod Club.
Other ways to deliver the food:

• Daily Bread Food Bank will pick up your donations (just fill out the pick up request form),
•  or you can can drop them off at any fire station
• or the DBFB main office at 191 New Toronto Street.

Let them know you were part of the #HoHoTO drive so we can count your food donations to our total for the event!

Need some more help? Get in touch and we’d be happy to give you some more tips and suggestions.  Thanks for being a rockstar and helping make the world suck a little less this HoHoTO season. We <3 U!

Written by: Heather Williams
Photo credit: Ryan Taylor

At FreshBooks, we eat just as much as anyone. More, in fact, than lots of people in Toronto get to eat.

So a couple of folks decided  to spend part of their weekend cooking up tasty “daal” — an Indian dish of spiced lentils in support of HoHoTO and called it the Daalpocalypse.

We made five pot-fulls of differently-spiced daal and brought it all in to the office on Monday for our co-workers to enjoy and asked them to make a donation to HoHoTO.

No surprise, this made us very popular with our co-workers. But honestly, daal is dead easy to make. Here’s how I do it:

Boil a cup of lentils in 3 cups of water with a teaspoon each of salt, turmeric and chilli powder for about 20 minutes

Chop up an onion and fry in a big pot with lots of oil (or ghee, if you can find it)

When the onion’s all soft and browning, add a bunch of crushed garlic and ginger, then throw in a chopped tomato.

Mix in the lentils along with a couple tablespoons of garam masala, chopped cilantro and a dash of cream (or almond milk, if you’re anti-milk).

Takes about an hour, which isn’t so much when you consider we earned

TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY DOLLARS

at lunch today! That’s a lot of food for the Daily Bread Food Bank.

So that’s what FreshBooks was able to do on top of our corporate donation, just by making some easy food for our coworkers. What tasty treats will tempt YOUR coworkers? Post your recipes in the comments, and let’s have a cook-0ff!

It’s Sunday, so today’s way you can help make a difference for Daily Bread Food Bank this HoHoTO season is a little more cerebral.  While you are sipping your coffee, take a couple of minutes to read a bit more about the charity we support and the hunger issue in Toronto.

From Daily Bread’s 2011 Hunger Snapshot, a brief picture of poverty and hunger in the GTA:

• 1,082,000 client visits from April 2010 to March 2011, 908,000 from Toronto; 174,000 from the 905
• 46% of adults have not eaten for a day because of lack of money
• 40% of adults go hungry at least once per week
• 36% of food bank clients are children
• 19% of children go hungry at least once per week

Daily Bread believes that “research is critical to creating social change to reduce poverty, here is some of the publications they’ve created to educate and engage the public and to push the government towards innovative and realistic policy solutions for hunger.”

Here is some more information to help you understand why what HoHoTO as a community does is so important:

• Hunger Snapshot – 2011 Profile of Hunger in the GTA
• Who’s Hungry: 2011 Profile of Hunger in the GTA Full Report
• Hungry City: Make Your Make – website for youth initiative
• Other Daily Bread’s Publications

My partner jokes that I “swear enough to embarrass my father, the sailor” and it’s true.

If you are like me, you can turn your natural talents to good by starting a #HoHoTO Swear Jar.  Even if you are a beginning curser, your contributions to the Daily Bread Food Bank will make a difference.  A $1 “f*k this noise” provide 2 meals to the hungry through Daily Bread.

Here’s a link to last year’s Swear Jars – How To post

So join me in saying this cr*p can’t continue, and hear the cha-ching of hunger being kicked in the a*s.

Only 13 days to go! #HoHoTO is coming fast!

You may have seen our announcement yesterday that we have broken the $40,000 mark in this year’s fundraising efforts for the Daily Bread Food Bank, but they need 1.2 million dollars!

With everyone asking “how can we help?”  we thought we’d give a little guide to the:

13 Days of HoHoTO – 13 ways you can help make a difference for Daily Bread Food Bank this HoHoTO season.

Of course, not everybody is on Twitter (er… they aren’t?).  So if you’re a HoHoTO supporter, how else can you help spread the word to all those people you know who are still stuck in the steam-powered world of email?

Add a little something extra to your email signature? A little something like this, perhaps:

A proud supporter of:

A Holiday party to raise sorely-needed funds for Daily Bread Food Bank
A hyper-connected social media movement
A remarkable example of the power of self-organizing online groups
Please learn more about this amazing effort at http://hohoto.ca

Copy & paste y’all. Copy & paste.

Here’s why we do this: (from Daily Bread Food Bank)

With a shortfall of 140,000 pounds of food and $85,000 from the Fall Drive, Daily Bread is looking to raise 1.2 million pounds of food and 1.2 million dollars by January 4 in order to ensure that food continues to go out over the winter months to families struggling with hunger.

While HoHoTO is a great party and a fantastic way to reconnect with everyone you know online but rarely get to see IRL, it is also an important Act of Good which you are doing by buying your ticket, getting a raffle ticket,  getting your photo taken at the pHoHoToBooth, and sponsoring HoHoTO!

We need your help, because they need our help.

• Buy a Ticket Now
• Donate!
  

• Get a Sponsorship
• Try one of these other ways to help or suggest a new one!

If you are interested in speaking with us about how you can help, ping sponsors@hohoto.ca

Just by taking one of these small actions, we as a community can make the world suck a little less!

We’re all chomping at the bit to know what’s up for grabs tonight at the Hangover Auction, and finally the list!!!

8:00-8:30 Lots

#Lot1 – Sony eReader

• Sony eReader ($200)
• Sponsor @EdenSpodek

#Lot2 – Cloud Space

• 2.5 hours of collaborative at Cloud Espresso Bar, 968 Queen Street West, Toronto ($200)
• Sponsors – @CloudAdAgency & SMG

8:30-9:00  Lots

#Lot3 – Geek Wardrobe Plus

• more than a week’s worth of teeshirts (mens large) from interesting and cool companies across Toronto (~$100)
• a GM performance jacket ($100)
• a collection of manly books from Raincoast Books ($72)
• Sponsors – Various including: @rightsleeve @yousayyeah @yahoo  @caplanskys @raincoastbooks …
  

#Lot4 – White Blackberry Torch

• a White Blackberry Torch ($610)
• $100 Rogers Gift Card ($100)
• Sponsors - @RogersBuzz

#LotX -Indian Cooking Class [last minute prize lot]

• $85 gift certificate towards at Arvinda’s Indian Cooking Classes ($85)
• Sponsors – @ArvindaSpices
  

9:00-9:30 Lots

#Lot5 – Kobo Science Geek

• Kobo + 2 downloadable books ($175)
• Science Nerd Gift Pack containing books, teeshirt, USB plasma ball, Atomic food containers and more ($100)
• Sponsors - @kobo @1degreebio
  

#Lot6 – Hotel Stay & Travel Books

• 1 night stay at the Hilton Garden Inn on Dundas East, and breakfast for 2 ($150)
• Lonely Planet’s A Year of Adventures ($20)
• Lonely Planet’s Volunteer – a traveller’s guide to making a difference around the world ($20)
• Sponsors - @HGI_INNsider & @raincoastbooks

#LotX2 -Xbox & Kinect [last minute prize lot]

• XBox 360 (250GB) + Kinect bundle ($450)
• Sponsors – Microsoft & @AccordionGuy
  

9:30-10:00 Lots

#Lot7- Spa Day

• 1/2 Day Spa Package including: Jurlique Age-Defying Facial, Airbrush Spray tan, 3 week manicure, Wash & Blowout($225)
• Make me a Woman by Vanessa Davis ($25)
• Sponsors - @joliebeautybar & @raincoastbooks
  

#Lot8 – MaRS Video Pitch Package

• 1 hour, 2 camera shoot to film your pitch at the MaRS Studio, Green Screen, 2 hours of post production ($2500)
• Sponsors - @MaRSDD

#Lot9 – Motorola Milestone

• Motorola Milestone Smartphone ($599)
• Sponsors - @motorola_ca
  

10:00-10:30 Lots

#Lot10 – Sony Dream Machine

• Sony Dream Machine speaker dock/clock radio for iPod and iPhone ($80)
• Sponsors - @edenspodek

#Lot11 – Little Kitchen 6-courses

• 6-course dinner for 4 catered in your home by Chef Matt Kantor of Littlekitchen.ca and Secret Pickle fame ($400)
• Sponsors - @mattkantor

10:30-11:00 Lots

#Lot12 – Cake & Make

• $100 gift certificate towards a custom cake for any occasion from Cake Star ($100)
• Booze Cakes by Krystina Castella and Terry Lee Stone ($16.95)
• Witch Craft by Margaret McGuire & Alicia Kachmar ($14.95)
• Yum-Yum Bento Box by Crystal Watanabe & Maki Ogawa ($16.95)
• Cookie Swap by Julia Usher ($19.99)
• Sponsors - @cakestargirlz @raincoastbooks
  

#Lot13 – Camaraderie

• a 2-month part-time membership at Camaraderie ($350)
• Secrets of Social Media Marketing by Paul Gillin ($15.95)
• Sponsors - @camaraderie & SMG
  

#Lot14 – Motorola Milestone

• Motorola Milestone Smartphone ($599)
• Sponsors - @motorola_ca
  

Tonight is the #HoHoTO Hangover Auction,  your last chance to help HoHoTO help the world suck a little less by helping the Daily Bread.

After Thursday’s massive, exhausting and wonderful HoHoTO Holiday Party, we’ve got some unclaimed prizes left over  so we’re auctioning them off along with a handful of goodies we kept in reserve just for you!

There are some exceptionally groovy goodies in this list‚ terrific last minute presents for a friend, loved one, family member, or just treat yourself! We’ll get to the list of auction items shortly, but first here’s how to be  a part of it!

• Go onto twitter from 8:00pm to 11:00pm tonight
• Watch for the auction lots  to be announced on the @hohoto Twitter account; (the complete list will be in the next post)
• Bid lots run for 30 minutes, so keep a close eye on the prize!
• Place your bids in the following form:
  @hohoto #LOT<lot number> $<your bid>  – <friendly note>
  e.g.     @hohoto #LOT8 $150 -  I want this lot so badly!
• Opening minimum bid on all items is $20. No maximum;
• Watch for other competitive bids, and try and win your favourite auction lots!

Rules and backgroundy details:

• winners will be determined by the highest bid received before the window closes based on the twitter time stamp.
• winners will be announced by the auctioneer on @hohoto
• the final decision of the auctioneers is FINAL!
• No late bids, no early bids will be accepted.
• Minimum starting bid is $20.
• Any items not bid on by the end of their allotted 30 minutes may be withdrawn and re-purposed for other charitable ends.

We’ll contact each winning bidder and arrange for payment and collection of your prize (yes, we’ll need you to collect them‚ remember, the goal here is zero expenses, if possible. More money for the food bank);

So get your twitter fingers ready and help push us over the $62,000 line. All proceeds, as always, to Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank

Missed out on #HoHoTO? Didn’t win anything? Want a creative way to help us get over the $62K mark?
Join the Hangover Auction on Monday night on twitter!

“What is the Hangover Auction” you ask?

It’s when we auction off all the unclaimed raffle prizes on twitter to continue raising money for Daily Bread Food Bank!  This year, in addition to the unclaimed prizes from #HoHoTO (including a Blackberry Torch and a Sony eReader), we have some late prize donations coming in and we even reserved a couple of great prizes we reserved just for the Hangover Auction (Sony Dream Machine, Kobo, Talk Nerdy To Me Prize Pack which is a gift bag of assorted science nerd stuff and books.)

During the day Monday we’ll announce the Auction Lots and share photos of each lot on twitter!

So tell your friends and family Monday night is booked!  Pour yourself a drink. Put on your most comfortable lounge wear and settle in with your favourite twitter device to join the fun!

The auctions are fast and furious, with bids flying in from all over twitter. Exciting competition, fantastic prizes, raising even more money for Daily Bread and you don’t even have to put on pants!