Hi. My name is Sam Vogel, and I'm a 14 year old from Mill Valley California. I wanted to write an article for The Vibe on the fundraiser I do for the Make a Wish Foundation, and Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.
If you don't know what the Make a Wish Foundation, it is a foundation that takes donations and "grants wishes" of seriously ill, but not always terminally ill, children. For example, they grant wishes such as meeting famous actors/singers, being on the sets of movie shoots, shopping sprees, going to Disneyland, anything to make their lives easier while they're cope with their illness. The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation is the foundation that my friend, Sam Klitsner, the co-runner of my event, supports, and takes the donation for research on a cure for a type of cancer called Multiple Myeloma. Sam's grandmother died of Multiple Myeloma, which is why he decided to donate his portion of the money to it.
The event Sam and I run is called the Skate for a Cause.We have done it for 2 years now, raising a total of $14,000. We started the event as a Tikun Olam (Hebrew for "repairing the world") project for our Bar-Mitzvah's. We didn't want to stick to the regular trip to the retired person's home, although this is a good choice in its own. We wanted to do something that we really loved to do, so the first thing that came to mind was skateboarding! After a few weeks of deliberation we had decided on having our project be a fundraiser that worked almost like a walk-a-thon, and we named it "Skate 4 a Cause", but we normally refer to it as "the skate-a-thon". The way our event works is we get our friends (and hopfully more people other than our friends this year) to get thier parents, relatives, friends, and other people to sponsor them per-trick they attempt, and donate as much as they saw fit. For example, someone who wanted to donate $50 and wanted the person to try a kickflip 100 times, would sponsor the skater $0.50. We have it annually at the McInnis Skate park, in northern San Rafael, CA. This year we are working with the Parks and Rec. so we can get lots of advertising, and they will help set up the event and get lots of cool things we could never have had before, like speaker systems so we can stream music and gather everyone together quickly.
If you want to help, sign up for this year's event (date-to-be-decided shortly), or just be a part of the community, you can email me at samdaman4000@yahoo.com, go to my Facebook, or go to the s4ac website (still under construction), which is www.skate4acause.org. This website will be switching shortly to a much cooler design and features such as a forum site! Thanks for reading!
-Sam Vogel
Also, the intro for the 2007 skate for a cause can be watched below 
![Imy [e-me!]](http://media.socialvibe.com/user_photos/119782/Editteddd_thumb.jpg)
