image.jpgThanks so much to Michelle Richmond (who is also providing the fantastic NaNoWriMo writing exercises) for turning me on to Kiva.org today. It was just what I needed. I was feeling pretty glutted out from yesterday’s feast, and NOT wanting to think about shopping, and her blog post about providing small loans to small-small-tiny business owners in developing countries. As Michelle says,

the beauty of the program is that it allows regular people who don’t have deep pockets to contribute in a very tangible way to the development of a community.

Kiva says, that they believe this is one of the best ways to empower our neighbors, giving them opportunities to become economically independent, improve their standard of living, and alleviate poverty for themselves and their communities. So I browsed the site a bit and picked (sort of randomly) a few people whose businesses I wanted to support. A small business owner in Mexico, and one in Kenya and another in Ecuador.  When I went back to this guy’s site, I saw that Michelle was also one of his loaners. Small world.