I’ve known about Scarleteen for a few years now, and I’m still bowled over by them. Scarleteen is a sexuality education and advice organization for young people, and it’s absolutely incredible. It’s a website with a huge library of great information. It’s a set of online forums where young folks can go to ask hard questions and get thoughtful answers. It’s a Twitter feed and Facebook page with tens of thousands of followers, and a database of right-on service providers. Above all it’s Heather Corinna, who’s an amazing resource for young people and people who care about them.

Scarleteen is a national treasure, seriously. All oriented toward one project — helping young people navigate issues of sexuality and sexual identity in a healthy, sustaining, affirming way.

And here’s the most astounding part: The organization reached five million people last year … and they did it with a total budget of less than $45,000.

It’s incredible. But unfortunately it’s not sustainable. In order to keep Scarleteen going and make it everything it can and should be, the organization needs more resources, which means it needs more money.

If you’re a regular reader of this site, you know that asking for money isn’t something I do. It’s not my thing. But for Scarleteen I’ll make an exception.

If you give Scarleteen a penny — a single penny — you give them the resources to reach one person. A dollar reaches more than a hundred. Ten bucks keeps them going for a whole hour.

An hour of Scarleteen, a thousand people helped, for ten bucks. Which means that if you give them twenty bucks a month for a year, then for one entire day all of Scarleteen, the whole thing, will happen because of you.

Maybe you won’t save someone’s life, but maybe you will. Maybe you won’t keep someone from getting pregnant, but maybe you will. Maybe you won’t help a fifteen-year-old get out of an abusive relationship, or help someone come out to their dad, or let someone know they can love their body, but maybe you will.

I don’t remember the last time I did a charitable solicitation on this blog — maybe never. But this is a big deal. I support Scarleteen, and I hope you will too.

Click here for more info on what Scarleteen does and how you can help. Click here to read what folks they’ve helped have to say about them. And then click here to throw them some money.

And if you do give them some money, any amount at all, let me know here or on Twitter, and I’ll give them another dollar myself.