Giftmas

Every year Rhonda Parrish organises a blog tour to raise funds for the Edmonton Food Bank in Canada, and this year I was asked to participate as one of a happy band of writers creating a story advent calendar. Each writer hosts a story on their blog, and readers can contribute to the fundraising via this Canada Helps link.

Every $1 raised goes straight to the food bank, and every $1 can buy three meals for those who need help. If you’re in Canada you can receive a tax receipt for your donation, and due to the exchange rate between American and Canadian dollars, US donors will get fantastic value for money.

This type of cause is very close to my heart. As most of my readers know I spent three years after I was kicked out of home at sixteen either homeless, no fixed abode, or vulnerably housed. At times I relied on food banks to have enough to eat. Food banks provide a safety net for vulnerable families, to make sure they can get food. The goal for 2018 is to raise $750, which translates into 2250 meals.

None of the money goes through any intermediate account. Every cent goes straight to the Food Bank. You can donate at the link below;

www.canadahelps.org/en/pages/2018-giftmas-blog-tour-to-support-the-edmonton-foo/

In conjunction with the blog tour, Rhonda has also set up a Rafflecopter with some fantastic prizes, including your name in a Beth Cato novel, free critiques, magazine subscriptions, signed copies of books, and free audiobooks. You don’t need to donate to enter, but it would be great if you could signal boost the fundraising.

You can find the story before mine, by Julie E Czerneda, at Rhonda Parrish’s blog. Tomorrow’s story is The Last by Premee Mohamed and can be read at Premee’s website.

Donate, share, signal boost, and I hope you enjoy my story Seeing With Pollen.

Seeing With Pollen

Throughout summer the eyes of the boy and the girl bloomed. Petals of red and azure edged hidden pupils. They walked in walled gardens and glasshouses of humid air, skin scented with honeysuckle and brushed with pollen. Faces tickled by the kiss of bees and the whisper of butterflies.

Autumn came. Petals curled and fell to the ground to be trampled into the lawn. Food for worms. Upon the frosted grass irises shattered like glass in the cold.

Winter clawed across the fields, dragging itself on broken plough furrows.

Stumbling through the woods the boy and girl leant upon each other. Neither had eyes. Just brittle stems and rose thorns that lay upon their cheeks and scratched their skin.

In the darkness of tree trunks they held each other close and curled away from the world. Away from the breath of wolves and the shout of snow.

Winter was long and spring came slowly. When the ice melted, the boy and girl bloomed flower buds from their eye sockets. They saw each other as if for the first time, and as the bees returned to skim across their lips they fell in love once again.

END