My Earth Hour 2009

So for Earth Hour 2009, I hung out with my mom and sis and we played Boggle by candle light. And it was such a mean game of Boggle, that our Earth Hour turned into TWO hours!

Check out the video

Feeding the World's Hungry Children - Part 3

If you haven't read Parts 1 and 2 yet, please do so before proceeding.

Click Here for Part 1

Click Here for Part 2

Part 3 - How to Get Involved
These videos illustrate the nuts and bolts of this program. Please view them as many times as you need.

So, what's next?
The only thing left to do now is to TAKE ACTION. I've given as much information as I can give in these posts and now what's left is to put the plan in motion. It's up to you to step forward and reach out and let me know that you want to help make a difference. Alone, we might be able to make an impact but together WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.

If you'd like to move forward and become part of the Let's Feed The Kids team, email your contact info (email and best phone number to reach you) to LetsFeedtheKids@yahoo.com and I will contact you with the details of getting started.

Feeding the World's Hungry Children - Part 2

As indicated by the title, this a follow-up to a previous post that described a product called the XanGo Meal Pack - "a dry powder formulation for the severely malnourished, it helps to strengthen those who cannot properly digest solid food due to long periods of poverty, famine and other disasters." If you have not yet read Part 1 or simply want a refresher, CLICK HERE.

The purpose for this post is to describe how you can get involved in helping get more of these Meal Packs out into the world.

But first things first.

XanGo is a Network Marketing company that as of this writing carries four product lines: XanGo Juice (dietary supplement), 3Sixty5 (vitamins & minerals), Glimpse (skin care) and of course the Meal Packs. As an independent distributor with XanGo, one has the option of marketing, promoting and building a business with any one or combination of the four products (or even all of them) - an important tidbit that we will come back to in a minute.

The Meal Packs cost $115US and are available in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Japan with plans of expansion into other international markets.

Now, there are a few ways to get involved. The first way is you can purchase a Meal Pack from your local XanGo distributor and it'll get shipped out in bulk once a pallet is filled. This is great if we all had an extra $115 to spend. However, I'm sure I don't have to point out that the economic trend is such that fewer and fewer people have any sort of extra disposable income. A sobering truth when trying to raise money and awareness for worthy causes.

So what is the answer? Well, XanGo being a Network Marketing company, a solution quite suddenly hit me. And I was surprised that no one had thought of (or at least followed thru with) this idea before.

Why not build an organization with the Meal Pack as the primary focus.

Sounds crazy I know but follow me on this one. There is no doubt that the Meal Pack is step in the right direction towards addressing the world hunger crisis. But another crisis, the global economic meltdown, has kept otherwise willing participants from getting involved. So why not set up a program where both issues are addressed, a program that lets people purchase these Meal Packs and at the same time create extra income for themselves?

That's exactly what I propose we do.

In my next post, I will outline a plan that will explain the steps we need to take to make this work. Until then, marinate on this: An entire Network Marketing organization of prospering distributors who have built their businesses with a product that feeds the hungry - people being rewarded for helping others.

It might just be crazy enough to work.







Again, please leave your comments below. I want to know what you think. Your feedback is crucial because only together can we make this work.

If you can't wait for the next blog entry and want to know right away how you can get involved, email me at letsfeedthekids@yahoo.com and we'll get things going.

Feeding the World's Hungry Children

Approximately six (6) million children die every year from hunger-related causes. That's over 16,000 children a day.

One Mississippi... Two Mississippi... Three Mississippi... Four Mississippi... Five Mississippi.

Another child lost.

The global hunger issue is not new and I'm not proposing that we can solve it here with one little blog post. To do so would be to oversimplify an otherwise monumentally complex situation.

What I would like to do, however, is with this post introduce something that I believe can make a difference. It's called the XanGo Meal Pack.

From day one, XanGo has been committed not only to donating to but also participating in worthy causes around the world giving aid in areas where it is most needed. One of the ways they're doing that is with the creation of the Meal Pack. In short, a Meal Pack is:

"a meal replacement program that is the first step out of starvation. A dry powder formulation for the severely malnourished, it helps to strengthen those who cannot properly digest solid food due to long periods of poverty, famine and other disasters.

The XanGo Goodness Meal Pack is an innovative product formulation. It is effective in meeting basic nutritional needs by simply adding water."

One Meal pack can feed approximately 50 people and as of January 2009, we've sold nearly 400,000 Meal Packs. That means millions of children in places like Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Myanmar have been nourished back to health as a direct result of these Meal Packs.

So, is it making a difference? Absolutely. And one of my favorite things about the Meal Pack is that it's tangible. More than making a donation to charities and not knowing where the money goes, when you buy a Meal Pack you know exactly what you've spent your money on and what it's purpose is.

In my next post, I will be sharing a detailed plan on how we can all work together to get more of these Meal Packs out into the world. So stay tuned. And in the meantime if you'd like more info on the Packs just click on the picture above.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. It means a lot to me and more importantly it means a lot to the children. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Your thoughts and feedback matter greatly because only together can we make a difference.

If you can't wait for the next blog entry and want to know right away how you can get involved, email me at letsfeedthekids@yahoo.com and we'll get things going.

Creating a Twitter Hashtag - #VOD Explained

What the hell is #VOD? Why is there one of those pound sign thingies in front of it? And why do I keep talking about the damn thing anyway? Well, all those questions and more will be answered right now.

#VOD literally stands for Video Of The Day. Okay, so there's no 'T' in it. Sue me. I opted for the shorter VOD because well it was shorter and it was pronounceable. Try saying votd. Didn't think so. Now, the pound sign or hashtag is used so that all Tweets with #VOD can be grouped and easily searched. This I'll explain in a second.


It's not news that Youtube and other video hosting sites are a great source of entertainment and information allowing anyone with video recording capabilities to post as much and as wide a variety of content as their hearts desire all the live long day. And there truly is a lot of high quality worth while material out their there. The yin to that yang however is that there's a lot of crap out there too. Lots.

Enter #VOD. Originally, all I had wanted to do was each day share a cool, funny, quality video with everyone in my Twitter network calling it "video of the day". But it quickly became much more than that. With the addition of the #VOD hashtag, the videos of the day are now easy to reference back to. All one has to do is go to Twitter and search for "#VOD" and instantly you're given access to all the Tweets with that particular hashtag and all the past videos of the day. And you don't even have to be a registered Twitter user to do this. Cool huh?

So, if you're looking for your daily fix of online video but don't want to waste hours sifting through drivel, just search for #VOD on Twitter and WALLAH! Cool videos instantly!





If you or someone you know has posted a video you think might be worthy of #VOD status or if you think you've happened upon the next viral hit, email me at cannibalron@yahoo.com with your name, contact info, website, and the link to the video. We'll screen the exhibit and if it passes our strict criteria (there isn't really a criteria), we'll post the video as a #VOD and give you credit.

www.Twitter.com/RonnieCruz

Welcome to Across the Board!

Welcome to my new blog. With my recent increase in online activity, I felt that my other, more business oriented blog couldn't quite fit the scope of everything I wanted to say, topics that run the gamut of my myriad of interests - movies, music, the arts, online video, social networking, politics, philanthropy, personal projects... I'm going to talk about everything, all topics ACROSS THE BOARD.

New School Biz Still Going Strong
If you're a Network Marketer, don't fret. I will still update my other blog regularly with relevant information to help you build your business. You can visit that blog HERE.

Otherwise, welcome again. I'm excited for this new beginning and I have many plans to keep you all well nourished with juicey morcels of bloggy goodness. So, stay tuned! Heck be bold and subscribe to this feed and become a follower. I promise you won't regret it!

www.Twitter.com/RonnieCruz