Hello, internet people! Happy International Women’s Day!

I’m taking a quick break from my regularly scheduled book blogging to tell you about something else that I’m pretty excited about: raising money for a rockin’ nonprofit called “She’s the First.” But don’t take my word for it: take a look at their website to see the awesome work that She’s The First is doing!

Those of you who know me IRL know that I can be a bit of a birthday diva, celebrating what I like to call “birthday month” for the entirety of March. This year, though, I’ve decided to do something a bit more worthwhile to celebrate the fact that my birthday month coincides with Women’s History Month: I’m participating in the Dare My Hair challenge that She’s the First is putting on.

In this challenge, I’ve pledged to do something crazy (for me) with my hair if I meet my $100 fundraising goal on Crowdrise. So if I raise at least $100 to help fund girls’ educations in developing nations, I’m going to dye my hair PURPLE. Yes, that’s right–PURPLE (see below for very creative MS paint rendering of what this might look like).

Let’s get real for a minute. Education is so, so important, but in many countries, young women are told that education isn’t important or isn’t right for them. They are encouraged to marry young, to start families, to put their dreams on hold or in the discard pile. Or, even if their families might encourage them to learn, so many other barriers, especially economic ones, can get in the way of making the pursuit of learning a reality.

I am so, so grateful to have been born into a country and a social class where my graduation from high school was just assumed. I am even more grateful to have supportive parents who took it for granted that I would be going to college and even helped me pay to attend my dream school when my scholarship wasn’t quite as big as we’d hoped. Not all women have the luxury of worrying about things like this when they are worried about basic needs, and when things like the lack of good sanitary products can cause them to miss a week of school each month.

So join me this birthday month/Women’s History month by raising some money to help provide scholarships so that young women around the world can make their dreams of education a reality!

As of the time this post went live, we already had 35% of my goal raised, which means I’m 35% of the way to a new purple ‘do and, more importantly, 35% of the way to raising $100 to help fund a young woman’s education.