The first one's always free....but will you buy a kid a bike?

By Matthew Holt

Many times because I'm an independent consultant, blogger or general self-appointed health care know-it-all people want to talk to me. And I’m always happy to talk. Sometimes these conversations turn into business for me or THCB or Health 2.0, but sometimes they don’t. What I tell anyone who wants my time is that the "first one is always free."

Meanwhile, as part of her return from a back injury my wife Amanda has bought a bike and is training for a triathlon later this Fall. It’s also renewal time for our favorite cause the Saigon Childrens Charity. Much of its resources are spent buying rice for poor families so that they don’t need to send kids out to work, and so the kid can go to school instead. With the price of rice doubling this year, things are getting tougher for the charity and the kids.

So we’ve decided to ask something. If you’re part of a company or organization that wants to talk with me, please consider making a contribution towards buying a bike for a very poor Vietnamese kid who may be otherwise walking 2 hours each way to school. Of course, you may have a favorite charity of your own instead.

I’m not going to check up on this, and I will be talking to people as per normal. But I will be telling people about my new idea and as a little reward, if you give to charity we’ll mention it on THCB, and if you have corporate swag appropriate for sports wear, Amanda will wear it in her training and we’ll feature photos of it on THCB. Oh yeah, and the Saigon Childrens' Charity is a little over 100 bikes short of its target for this year.