I ran across a story that is in no way sims related, but the sims community can help and make a big difference with. I would greatly appreciate it if you could place an announcement on your page to encourage your visitors to go to this site. Thanks

Avery's Bucket List (http://averycan.blogspot.com/2012/04/smavery.html) is a blog written by a set parents from the perspective of their 5 month old baby Avery. This adorable little girl has been diagnosed with SMA Type 1 (Spinal Muscular Atrophy). There is no cure and there are currently no clinical research studies for a cure. The doctors have given her 18 months to live.

Avery's parents created a bucket list for her of things to do before time is up. Most of us can't do much to help out this little angel and her parents, but one thing on her bucket list is to go Viral and get over 10,000,000 hits. We can help with this. Please visit the page, be sure to have Kleenex handy and pass the link one to everyone you know.

Hiya, Sookielee. I can see why you're so eager to spread the word about this story - SMA is indeed a horrible disease, and I luckily can't imagine the torment these parents are going through, knowing they have so little time with their new baby. I don't think we'll be able to announce the story as official MTS news, however, and let me explain why.

Don't jump to the obvious conclusion when I say this! There's a lot of suffering in the world, and the vast, vast majority of it is totally undeserved, being inflicted upon people who couldn't have guessed what was coming and whose dreams are shattered by it. The Canahuati family's story is heartbreaking, and giving the parents a little comfort by helping them achieve their bucket list goals is certainly a worthwhile pursuit. The problem is, though, that there are hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of such situations; people in pain who could be helped by a few minutes of a load of simmers' time. Don't mistake this for me dismissing the Canahuatis' story as "just another" worthy cause - that's the point: the significance and importance of these things isn't diminished in the least by there being so many of them. That's also the problem. If we announce the Canahuatis' story, then how can we possibly justify not announcing, for example, TheHungerSite, an ad supported group of sites where every visitor can, with thirty seconds and a click of a mouse, donate a bunch of ad revenue to autism therapy, cancer research, healthcare for poor children, and so on? Imagine how many suffering families could be helped if every single one of our visitors took a couple of minutes every time they visit the site to go and click those buttons! Hell, eventually, that money could even go to funding SMA research - achieving the Canahuatis' goal of developing tests and treatments. And this is just one example: the possibilities are endless.

I guess you can see the problem now. We're MTS - and while all of us would be happy to give the Canahuatis their pageviews, at the end of the day, we're a sims modding site, and there is only so much we can do. With all the good things your everyday internet addict can do, all the children, adults, families, organisations they can help; well, if we announced all the things that deserve webspace and notice within the simming community, we'd turn into an RSS feed of that rare gem that is slacktivism that actually does have a positive effect on someone's life. Perhaps that's something that should exist - I might subscribe - but our front page isn't the right place for it. I hope you can understand why I say that, and that it isn't down to a failure on my part to understand the monumental nature of the Canahuati family's struggle.

Perhaps you've already done this, but a thread in Off-topic discussion would be a good place for their story to be pointed out - I suspect that more people read OTD than Site News, in any case - and of course, you're welcome to direct people to it in any other imaginative way you can think of within MTS. Signatures and avatars get lots of exposure, and we've even had a few uploads over the years which have been dedicated to a cause, using the upload to ask downloaders to support something; the same thing could be done with a story, or non-sims artwork in the Creativity section. The possibilities, once again, are endless; and as you say, raising some awareness in the sims community can give some much-needed comfort to Mr and Mrs Canahuati.