Wikipedia Gets $20M in Annual Fundraising Drive

Posted in Articles on 2012-01-03 21:46Z by Steven

Wikipedia Gets $20M in Annual Fundraising Drive

The Associated Press
2012-01-03

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Wikipedia has raised $20 million in its annual plea for donations to help expand and improve the Internet’s leading encyclopedia.

More than 1 million people contributed the money during a fundraising drive that concluded Sunday. The amount pledged to the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit group that oversees the volunteer-driven Wikipedia, represents a 33 percent increase from the $15 million donated during the previous year’s fundraising campaign…

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Martin de Porres

Posted in Biography, Caribbean/Latin America, History, Media Archive, Religion on 2011-05-06 19:21Z by Steven

Martin de Porres

Wikipedia

Martin de Porres (December 9, 1579 – November 3, 1639) was a lay brother of the Dominican Order who was beatified in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI and canonized in 1962 by Pope John XXIII. He is the patron saint of mixed-race people and all those seeking interracial harmony.
 
He was noted for work on behalf of the poor, establishing an orphanage and a children’s hospital. He maintained an austere lifestyle, which included fasting and abstaining from meat. Among the many miracles attributed to him were those of levitation, bilocation, miraculous knowledge, instantaneous cures, and an ability to communicate with animals.

Account of his life

Juan Martin de Porres was born in the city of Lima, in the Viceroyalty of Peru, on December 9, 1579, the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a black former slave who was born in Panama. He had a sister named Juana, born three years later in 1581. He grew up in poverty; when his mother could not support him and his sister, Martin was confided to a primary school for two years, then placed with a barber/surgeon to learn the medical arts. This caused him great joy, though he was only ten years old, for he could exercise charity to his neighbor while earning his living. Already he was spending hours of the night in prayer, a practice which increased rather than diminished as he grew older….

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