In the spirit of Thanksgiving, this is excerpted right from Daily Kos. It is a cause I have focused on before and I chipped in again this year. From Daily Kos:

Many of you know the story of Kossacks' involvement with saving the Pretty Bird Woman House, which is a women's shelter on the South Dakota side of the Standing Rock Reservation. Last fall we conducted a fundraiser thatraised enough money to buy the shelter an entire new house. Since this week is the beginning of the holiday giving season, I want to give you an update on the shelter and some ideas for donating if you are so inclined...
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Pretty Bird Woman House, a refuge for abused women on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, has been a focus of some considerable blog effort of late (see, for example, here). This women's shelter had once been saved by the liberal blogsphere, but was then vandalized and was facing losing its lease. The liberal blogsphere stepped up to bat again. The goal was to buy the house outright for the person who ran the shelter and to provide a solid security system. It was estimated that the blogsphere would have to raise $70,000 to accomplish this. The timing was critical because Pretty Bird Woman house had received a Federal grant...which could only be accepted if the shelter still existed.

As of 12/30/07 I learned that the liberal blogsphere raised upwards of $80,000 to establish Pretty Bird Woman House as a lasting shelter for abused women. This was quite an accomplishment and Culture Kitchen played its own small role in it. To those who gave, or even just spread the word, THANK YOU! This was a true mitzveh accomplished thanks to hundreds of people from all over the country.

Of course, I never feel like our job is done. I am hoping that now that we have saved Pretty Bird Woman House and made it a lasting place of refuge, we can do the same for the Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center on the Yankton Sioux Reservation.
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Today is a big push to try and save Pretty Bird Woman House, a women's shelter on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. I have brought up the Pretty Bird Woman House Woman's Shelter before when I discussed the horrific Amnesty International report on the high incidence of rapes of Native American women by outsiders who seldom get procecuted. This shelter's sad story has continued. It was vandalized and is not being sold off. This will leave many women on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation with no support system. On Daily Kos a fundraiser is ongoing to raise enough money to buy the property and set it up to be a safe and secure women's shelter again.

I am asking you to help out. I donated $100. Some are donating as much as $500. This is pure, old fashioned good works in keeping with the holiday season.

Bottom line is, this shelter has in essence been shut down by lack of funds and vandalism. But the netroots are on the verge of saving it by helping buy it outright. The shelter has been recently awarded a Federal grant which can keep it going...but only if it has a place and it won't have a place if we don't help them buy the property.

Here is the background and scoop sent to me by a fellow blogger working on this:

About Pretty Bird Woman House

The shelter was founded in memory of Ivy Archambault, whose Lakota name translates to Pretty Bird Woman. In 2001, Pretty Bird Woman was kidnapped, raped and beaten to death. Her sister, Jackie Brown Otter, decided that something had to be done for other victims, to put an end to this nightmare.
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Planned Parenthood is fighting the South Dakota ban on abortion and they are asking you to host or attend a potluck fundraiser for choice.

Potluck House Parties will be held across the country to raise money and build awareness for the campaign to defeat the abortion ban in South Dakota.

Sign up to host a Potluck for South Dakota with your friends and family!

Use their online tools to create, manage and promote your potluck.

The host whose potluck raises the most money will win a Newman’s Own gift basket and a trip to New York City to meet Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards!

Or you can find a potluck near you to attend.

[via TomPaine.com - Pushing Back On Roe]:

Democrats do need to understand that the pro-choice majority encompasses a variety of views. Many who want to preserve reproductive freedom are also troubled by the large number of abortions performed in this country. Abortion rates are far lower in Europe (due in part, to superior health care systems delivering birth-control services).

But Democrats should reject the conservative proposition that freedom to obtain abortion causes the high abortion rates in America. Abortion rates have actually been declining since the mid-1980s. And they would be even lower today but for a falling percentage of poor American women with access to contraception, according to a newstudy from the Guttmacher Institute. The study found that, in 2001, 14 percent of poor women were not using contraception, compared with 8 percent in 1994. The institute blames the resulting rise in this group's rate of unintended pregnancies on cuts in government family planning programs.

So when Hillary Clinton and other Democrats call for reducing the number of abortions in America, they strike a chord among many basically pro-choice people who want abortion kept legal but not regarded as casual. Many of these voters support Republicans for cultural reasons. Democrats can win them back.
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