As the season of giving draws near, Maht Wuyts, the owner and grand poobah of The Velvet, hopes to capitalize on your giving spirit to support his annual effort to raise funds for Heifer International. In this annual event, Maht will personally spin music for 26.2 hours straight – a marathon (or mahrathon) effort in Second Life and Real Life (at a Chicago coffeehouse) with all the tips going to support Heifer. You can see Heifer highlighting his event last year.

The great thing about Heifer is that it is organized around the idea of sustainability – providing people the resources so they can support themselves and even pay it forward and help their neighbors. By giving people the animals to raise for food and products to sell, they promote independence and self-sufficiency, teaching people to fish, not giving fish – as the saying goes.