Add your "two cents" along with your pledge! Send your statement and photo (optional) to cmac@sej.org.

Carol Brzozowski

Once upon a time, when I worked on a newspaper staff, I had the occasion to attend some fundraising events where people would outdo each other in pledging donations to a worthwhile cause.

When I saw Tom Henry's note last week on his pledge, I decided I would not let my college buddy donate to SEJ while I silently stood still.

I felt guilt.

I mean, poor Tom has to live and work in Ohio while I suffer here in the Fort Lauderdale area. How could I not donate?

Anyway, Tom was the person who led me to SEJ. I am grateful that he did, because I'm a single parent who has stubbornly refused to "get a job", preferring instead to continue my freelancing career so I could be as available as possible to my sons.

I'd already been writing for some trade journals in the environmental industry and Tom dogged me to join SEJ. After I did, I saw a bump up in my income as ideas flowed from the SEJ emails. When I occasionally need help with sources, SEJ members have been quick to point me in the right direction.

I am grateful that SEJ is one of the many factors that allows me to do what I love, while taking time off occasionally to chaperone a field trip.

Journalism is an inherently competitive field and what's impressed me the most is the sharing (thus caring) of information among SEJ members, not to mention the professionalism with which the organization operates. A lot of professional organizations out there exist to make money; SEJ has impressed me with how money is just a tool to promote the mission of environmental journalism.

In gratitude, I will make a pledge. It's a pleasure, truly.

— Carol Brzozowski, freelance writer

Jim Bruggers

"This is a pledge, and a challenge, to my many SEJ colleagues and friends. I want to give $1,000 to SEJ's 21st Century Fund, but I don't want to be alone. So I am challenging five others to step up to the plate and join me in the next 48 hours with $1,000 pledges. If you do, SEJ will meet its goal this week. If you can't give a thousand, any amount you can give is welcome.

"I am inspired by more members than I could name here, for the work they do in small and large news organizations alike, in a time of great uncertainty about the future of our profession.

"Join me, please, in helping to make sure SEJ is around for generations to come, and that our collective work building SEJ has a lasting impact."

— Jim Bruggers, Louisville Courier-Journal and past SEJ president, 2000-2002

Dennis Dimmick

"Joe Davis' weekly tipsheet and biweekly watchdog editions are gems, the daily email of "Today's Environmental News" gathers in one place the prominent environmental news of the day. They all help me see and follow emerging trends. Then there's the website and the quarterly newsletter, both always filled with fresh perspectives, and ideas about new tools and techniques to become a better reporter and analyst.

"But beyond these tangible benefits, there is another, more ineffable benefit of SEJ. And that is knowing you are part of a common mission, joined with other like-minded concerned journalists who want to bring issues to light and explain for a knowledge-hungry public about the health and vitality of the environment that we all depend on for life."

— Dennis Dimmick, National Geographic

Amy Gahran

Help SEJ and your career at the same time!

Longtime SEJer Amy Gahran, a media consultant based in Boulder, CO, has added her own challenge to SEJ's current fundraising drive. Through May 31, any individual or organization who donates $1000 or more to SEJ will get two free hours of consulting, research, or coaching in online, social, or conversational media — a $250 value.

Do you need to understand blogs and feeds better? What's a wiki and why should you care? How can you use the net better to cover your beat? How can you improve your online efforts? Does Digg matter?

Amy can help you figure out all this and more for your personal donation of $1000 or more. And your gift will help keep SEJ's mission alive.

Michael Grunwald

"I'm not much of a joiner; I think SEJ is the first organization I've joined since my high school drama club. But it's a great cause, and it won't be supported by anyone if it isn't supported by non-joiners like us."

— Michael Grunwald, The Washington Post and author

Corinne Irwin

Corinne and her father

"It is one thing to be passionate like Erin Brockovich, pretty and healthy, and get a $2 million dollar check at the end of the movie when PG&E is finally held accountable for the mass damage and death caused by hexavalent chromium. It is quite another thing to be the researcher, the writer, and the person poisoned by mercury, benzene, ethyl benzene, styrene, etc. herself all at the same time. Thanks to Kevin Carmody who believed in me and still asked me every last question that he and his editors could possibly imagine, I finally made it to the front page of the Sunday newspaper in November of 2001 with me on the top and the Osama story on the bottom. I became the topic of one of Kevin's legacy series, and my life changed completely. CBS 48 Hours even called me from New York to include me in an exposé that they were doing on mercury-toxic patients, but there ended up being too much retaliation and shredding of evidence for CBS to continue their interest in me for a purely medical story. At any rate, the gift of playing Joan of Arc with a big, bad institution (a school like in NJ) was that I got to become Kevin's friend and confidante. He made me believe that I could write to make an environmental difference on this planet, and he actually was one of my editors for my articles on PAH's and mercury that I wrote for the Corinne Irwin Foundation web site. He also told me in confidence that if I had not done so much of the research prior to meeting him that his editors would have never given him enough months to devote to investigating and writing my story.

"My mom was another one of my editors, and when she read my mercury piece, she looked up at me and said "Your father is poisoned by mercury, isn't he?" The picture of me hugging my dad is the last picture that I have of us together. He is rapidly dying of Alzheimer's, his body loaded with mercury, aluminum, pesticides, etc. There is very little light left in his eyes as you can see, but I will continue to go see him every month as long as he is alive or knows who I am. I will not get the environmental Alzheimer's/autism story to the page before he dies, but maybe one of you or I will while we are still alive and writing. Perhaps we should write it together!

"My 501(c)3 environmental non-profit is nowhere near solvent financially at this point and experiencing technical difficulties, so I have thought for months about what in the world Kevin would advise me to do about helping to endow SEJ. While we were in Burlington, I just thought that I wished SEJ well and hoped that we all made our goal without any further contribution from me personally. However, as the months of the campaign went on, I realized that the CIF's money sitting in a bank account with minimal interest doing nothing at all was stupid compared to guaranteeing that SEJ became endowed. I have watched carefully with great admiration the personal overtures that have gone above and beyond the call of duty since Chris Rigel sent out her St. Patrick's Day challenge to help SEJ. I have had to cry the tears of giving up a personal dream at least for now to build out my foundation, but I knew that in my heart, I was doing the right thing to give the money to SEJ. After attending the past two SEJ annual conferences and getting to know some of the members and staff well, I have found a new set of friends and like-minded colleagues who passionately want to have the environmental truths be known and hopefully remediated before the planet burns up or is poisoned beyond inhabitability for us all.

"I am very honored to be a member of SEJ. Kevin wanted me to be a part of SEJ, and now I am. I am so thrilled that my foundation and I could help."

— Corinne Irwin, freelance environmental writer and president, Corinne Irwin Foundation

Chris Rigel

Chris with grandson, Luke

"St. Patrick's Day makes me think of SEJ's Irish founding board member, Kevin Carmody, whom we lost just two years ago. Kevin believed that environmental journalism — and the reporters who cover environment — need an organization to support accurate and frequent coverage of issues about our air, water, food, land, and the wildlife with whom we coexist.

"I believe it, too. In Kevin's memory, I pledge $1000 to support SEJ in the continued effort to improve the quality, accuracy and visibility of environmental news reporting. This is the best gift I can give to my grandson — to support an informed community with continued excellence in environment news reporting.

"Please join me. Please make your donation today."

— Chris Rigel, associate director, SEJ

Mark Schleifstein

"The Crescent City Challenge:

"In New Orleans, we have a word that means just a little more: Lagniappe.

"And that's what I'm challenging at least five of my SEJ friends to do: reach a bit more, deeper into your pocket for $1,000 as a lagniappe match of the pledge of another $1,000 that I and my wife have made.

"We who still live in New Orleans know why this is important. Our lives and the lives of our children depend on an accurate portrayal of environmental issues in today's news media, whether it be the potential effects of hurricanes on coastal communities or the effects of global warming on our hurricane risk.

"Remember how SEJ's members stepped up to provide timely information on our Web site and on SEJ-TALK about how to cover hurricanes in 2005 when Katrina, Rita and Wilma provided their 1, 2, 3 punch. And remember that for us to be there next time, we'll need the resources that the 21st Century Endowment Fund and our challenge grant represent.

"Hurricane season is only seven weeks away!

"Send in your pledge now!"

— Mark Schleifstein, staff writer, The Times-Picayune

Phil Shabecoff

"I see my gift as an investment in the future of my grandchildren as well as an investment in the future of SEJ. Given the way the world is headed, there is arguably no more important a subject for journalism than the environment.

"And there is arguably no more important an institution than SEJ in keeping the public accurately and fairly informed about what is happening and what are the stakes."

— Phil Shabecoff, former chief environmental correspondent, The New York Times, founder and publisher of Greenwire, author

Jennifer Weeks

"Last year I was assigned to write a report on factory farming, and my editors asked me to visit a CAFO (confined animal feeding operation). Where to start? I posted a request on SEJ's listserv asking members who had covered CAFOs if they could offer any contacts with media-friendly farmers, and received eight leads that afternoon. Just one example of what a good resource SEJ is."

— Jennifer Weeks, freelance writer

Tim Wheeler

"SEJ was there for me when I was new to the beat. From SEJ's very first conference in Colorado, I've been inspired and energized by this group of smart, dedicated, sharing people.

"The conferences, SEJournal, the TipSheet and e-mail listservs all have fed me valuable background and story tips. Colleagues — now friends — and even some competitors have generously helped me with contacts, ideas and encouragement.

"The news business is changing radically now. I want to be sure SEJ is around to nurture and show the way for a new generation of journalists, whatever medium they use to get their stories out."

• Wheeler's challenge and valentine to SEJ.

— Tim Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun, and current SEJ president

E.O. Wilson

"I can think of no group of professionals better positioned than the SEJ to promote the wise management of our environment. If people don't know, they don't care, and if they don't care, they don't act."

— E.O. Wilson, scientist and author

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