Only Six Hours Left to Help Roz Savage Row for a Bluer Future

Photograph courtesy of Phil Uhl

Here’s your chance to do something REALLY nice for someone using your AmEx card that won’t affect your monthly finance charge.

The indomitable Roz Savage, who just a month ago became the first woman to row solo from California to Hawaii, is in contention to receive a grant through American Express’s Members Project Awards. The contest will parse out $2.5 million to people who are making a positive impact on the world. And while it may pale compared to a $700 billion bailout, the $1.5 million grand prize could help Roz go a very long way…even all the way across the Pacific.

On September 1, Roz completed the first leg of her three-stage challenge, a feat which will take her some 7,600 miles to Australia. Her primary objective is not the record, but to use her adventure to engage the public and create a perception that it is "Cool To Be Blue." She believes that we are all empowered as individuals to make a difference. While she makes no claims to be an environmental expert, as eco-adventurer she will raise awareness of the issues and communicate to her audience specific ways in which they can take positive action.

"We are bombarded every day by so much bad news relating to environment that it is easy for individuals to feel overwhelmed, helpless and hopeless, as if nothing they can do will make a difference," notes Savage. "But I want to spread the message that each of us as individuals has the power to make positive changes in our lives that will accumulate into a tidal wave of change for the better. People might think that their contribution to the environment is just a drop in the ocean. But a drop spreads ripples. Each and every one of us has the power to make a world of difference–one stroke at a time."

So we ask: Who better to get a piece of the purse than a self-made adventurer who quit her office job to row the world’s great oceans and help make the Earth a bluer place?

AmEx cardholders have until midnight tonight weigh in. Click here to vote >>