Fieldnotes: Blogging on UNICEF's child survival work in the field

As you settle into the new year and recover from the hectic end of the last, it's a great time to take stock. Not just of goals and resolutions for 2008 but of what we have accumulated. Everyone has a crazy aunt or uncle who gets them ties for your business casual job or sweaters that may have fit in the eighth grade.

There is nothing wrong with those ties and sweaters; in fact, there are plenty of people who would wear them! So here's an idea: list them on eBay in the coming weeks. There you can use the eBay Giving Works tool to donate the auction proceeds to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

Giving Works enables you to clean out your closets, ridding yourself of unwanted items – while helping the children of the world. (Don’t worry – eBay refunds your fees when using Giving Works.)

Turn your unwanted gifts into a gift for the world's kids!

Jenna Bush, daughter of President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush, interned with UNICEF in Latin America and the Caribbean from September 2006 through May 2007. Based on her experience, she wrote Ana's Story, a personal, narrative nonfiction account of a girl who struggles to break free from a vicious cycle of abuse, poverty and illness.

We're selling a signed-first edition of Jenna's book on eBay. The auction ends on Monday. Please consider bidding on the signed book by clicking the banner below. Or, buy the book from ShopUNICEF.

That’s right YOU are a yellow star! Thank you everyone who has helped the US Fund for UNICEF over our first eBay hurdle – positive feedback. After receiving our tenth positive feedback this week we were awarded a gold star. Vaulted over the initial temporary eBay status and on or way to many more colored stars.

I encourage everyone to set up an eBay account and start selling before the end of September. eBay is waiving all insertion fees for the month of September, making it a great month to begin eBaying for UNICEF.

The UNICEF store has added a few more auction items that I encourage you to look at. Happy Bidding…

Read the news or look at our homepage and you'll see that there is a lot going on in the world. In places like Peru, Darfur or the South Asia flood region, it is especially difficult to be a young child right now. What can you do to help? eBay for UNICEF!

Maybe over the holiday weekend you are planning to clean out the garage or basement. Don’t throw it away, sell it on eBay and help the children of the world.

Through the eBay Giving Works program you can buy and sell items to support UNICEF. The U.S. fund for UNICEF is currently being highlighted for Peru disaster relief.

Currently we are selling several books. But check back often as we are always adding new items to auction. Happy Bidding!

Congratulations…
eBay sent an email this week letting us know that we are half way to our gold star with 5 positive feedback comments. Please consider buying from UNICEF and helping us earn our gold star. We promise to get the items to you quickly and in good condition. Take a look at the items up for auction. Remember, shoping from our eBay store helps kids around the globe.

New England White by Stephen L. Carter - Book NEW!

Screwed: The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class by Thom Hartmann - Book NEW!

America 24/7 by David Eliot Cohen, Rick Smolan - Book

Olympus Stylus Zoom 115 DLX 35mm Film Camera

Golf Bag - Green

Happy Bidding...

We received positive feedback from two buyers. That puts us at 20% of the way to our yellow star, so please leave feedback if you are pleased with your purchase.

We are in the beginning stages of setting-up our unicef-idc page to better reflect who UNICEF is and what we do. I hope the page gives buyers a better understanding of where the money from their purchases goes. Please feel free to comment below if you have any ideas or suggestions.

New items for sale, for UNICEF:
A Long Way Gone is the story of a child soldier
Afghani Lazuli Suite of Tribal Beads
Maternity clothes, as always, for sale by exoticbargain

Thanks again for supporting UNICEF through eBay!

It's an exciting moment for us. Everything we listed on eBay last week has sold! It's a 100% success rate in our short eBay life.

So onward and upward... we've listed some new items, one in particular I think is a great buy: New York Philharmonic Historic Broadcasts 1923 to 1987. It is up for bid at $9.99 and the Philharmonic website will show you that is a deal!

We also want to thank our new Mission Fish - Giving Works sellers. We've had 11 new sellers register in the past two weeks! Some of them already have items up for sale:
leen9559
exoticbargain

Nor can we forget our top two sellers who always seem to be there for UNICEF:
youngflutes
chicagoetc

P.S. Stamp collectors be prepared! At the moment, we're sorting through maybe over 10,000 UN stamps (from all over the world) to sell on eBay soon!

Sold to dreams540 -- thanks for making our first sale possible. The $6.98 could go to help one of the:

"3 million children in Darfur who have been forced to flee across the arid landscape or struggle for survival beyond the reach of humanitarian relief."

Our hope is to bring eBay buyers items they love, in turn bringing children items they need to survive.

Check in next week as more items will be for sale.

UNICEF USA is now selling items on eBay that will directly help the children of the world. You can find all of our items under the name: unicef-idc. Please help us: we need more stars or a star, to be exact!

Stolen Lives

"Rich in unlikely detail...Malika Oufkir's story is also exceedingly satisfying as a narrative, providing resolution and even romance after almost unbearable adversity."

New York Review of Books - Claire Messud (05/09/2002)

We Were the Mulvaneys

"Oates unspools this expansive story, and captures this memorable clan, with a huge amount of exacting yet unfussy energy. the busy spill of her sentences is a perfect match for the tumble of big-family life....[I]t will consume you."

It's easy to set up an eBay account and start selling for UNICEF. It took under an hour for me to set up my eBay account and link it to my Mission Fish account. There are step-by-step directions on how to sell.

We don’t have a basement or an attic at UNICEF but a quick e-mail around the office netted a box full of interesting stuff. I hope to add a few items each week--and hope to get a few stars soon.

A big thank you to our new sellers this week: barenakedsoap1, aanderson2007, 1baikim, software-247.

After a little research the answer is most definitely yes. For the first three months of this year, eBay had net revenues of $1,770,000,000. I am unable to fathom the number of items that were hauled up the basement stairs or thrown down the attic ladder to generate $1.77 billion. Imagine if all of those sellers donated:

• A half a percent to UNICEF could provide enough vaccine to immunize 17,700,000 children against polio
• 1% to UNICEF could immunize 11,800,000 children against measles, mumps and rubella
• 5% to UNICEF could purchase enough vaccine to immunize 173,460,000 children against diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough

Amazing what could be accomplished in three months by selling items on eBay.

Also, the flute for sale by yungflutes that was featured here last week sold for nearly $200. Check out more of their auctions that support UNICEF.

Yes, it is that easy: buy and sell on eBay and support the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Through our friends at Mission Fish you can set up an account to sell for UNICEF or browse some of the items for sale in our store.

If you have an eBay account already, all you have to do is link it to your newly created Mission Fish account by following the directions for an eBay community Seller. Pick a percentage of the total sale to donate to UNICEF and sell!

In our store you will see a wide array of items to buy, from many gracious sellers. Thankfully we seem to have built-up some loyalty. Selling your item through Mission Fish will place it in the Giving Works section of eBay. eBay notes on their site that Giving Works listings "tend to sell at higher final prices" and best of all your selling fees will be refunded.

eBay Power Seller chicagoetc always seems to have something for sale for UNICEF:

• Maybe you are looking for a camera?
  
• Or a Disney Peter Pan collector's item?
  
• In med school? Need a textbook?
  
• Thinking of picking up an instrument?

In the next few weeks I am going to try to scavenge the office for items to sell for UNICEF and see if we can’t highlight more sellers on eBay who are supporting UNICEF.