Important Public Announcement!

Hello all!

Hope you've been having a great July! By now you've probably noticed that our "amount raised" number hasn't been going up very much recently, and we wanted to let you know all about why that is so.
Some of you are aware of the fact that Benelab was founded last summer by two highschool juniors, Devin and I, and that we raised a total of $1500 of startup capital from family and friends. That number, surprisingly, is at around $400 right now.Why is that so? Well, we've been consistantly donating to our monthly causes for the past ~9 months, but we still haven't been paid by Yahoo! This is why you aren't seeing a June donation check to Changes for A New Hope just yet. Don't worry, though, as the payments from Yahoo are going to be on their way to our bank account very soon. We just wanted to let you know of the situation we're in right now!

So hopefully that will clear up some confusion that may have been caused by the missing June donation check. We'll keep you updated once that is finally made - thanks for your patience!

India Today, L'espresso, oh my!

Long time no press, right?
Well, today I was excited to update the press page with two brand new coverages, both international publications! One of our awesome fans Vilas Pavithran told us about us being in India Today, and I randomly stumbled upon the L'espresso article earlier today. The latter one though, is completely in Italian and I have no idea what it is saying about us. All I recognize is "Benelab.org" and "Jack Kim" haha. More press is coming this summer, so stay tuned on the press page!

July Cause - Sending 5 Children to School!

Hello all!

Sorry it's been so long since the last blog post - we at Benelab have been really busy lately with a new project (coming soon...)! We sincerely apologize for the very bad delay in updating the July cause.

Anyways, we think the new cause this month is pretty cool - we're going to raise $400 to send 5 children to school for a full year through our friends at World Concern! The $400 includes everything from tuition, and books to writing materials.

The reason we chose this cause is that we, especially I, believe that education is a huge stepping stone in coming out of poverty and empowering an individual to achieve more; knowledge instills confidence in a person, and confidence leads to opportunities! As fellow students benefitting by education every day, we truly wish our funds will go towards planting firm foundations in the children (now soon to be students) we will be supporting.

For more information on the specific cause we are supporting and the nonprofit organization World Concern, visit http://globalgiftguide.worldconcern.org/category/education/education-package

Thanks!

Problem fixed!

We just got the problem fixed! We have temporarily reverted back to the Bing API until we hear from Yahoo that they have fixed their probelm. Search on!

Experiencing problems with Benelab Search?

Within the past couple days we have been getting reports from some of our users that they are not receiving any search results on Benelab. Yahoo has confirmed that their frame is not working on Internet Explorer 8. We are at this very moment making a temporary patch to fix it. Thanks for your patience!

May Donation - $330!

I just signed off a $330 check to the Ronald McDonald House of Washington! May was a kinda shaky month for Benelab to tell you the truth (The team and I weren't able to spend too much time of it, so we didn't experience much growth...), but I am excited that our funds will go towards purchasing much needed supplies at RMHC!

The charity was first suggested by McKayla, our VP of Marketing (super good worker BTW) and I'm glad we chose them for May!

For now, over and out. :)

June Cause - Providing 20 LED Lamps

Wow, what can I say. These past few days have been overwhelming for me, filled with thousands of tweets about Benelab and my inbox piling up with new opportunities every day. The Mashable article (http://mashable.com/2012/06/01/benelab/) no doubt helped us so much, and it single handedly doubled our user base. AP tests and SATs are over, and with an entire summer break fully dedicated to Benelab work, I am very excited about the future of our venture.

Anyways, with the help of a new partner we established very recently, Benelab has finally decided on our June cause: we will be raising $400 to purchase and send 20 hand-powered LED lanterns to Peru. The lanterns will allow middle-school students who have no access to electricity to study even after the sun sets! The lanterns will be delivered to Peru via Changes for New Hope (http://www.changesfornewhope.org/), a nonprofit organization that focuses on educating children in the Peruvian Andies. It is a completely volunteer-run foundation just like Benelab!

Another very recent partner that we are excited to announce is GivingSomeThing.com(http://www.givingsomething.com/). It is a platform that allows anyone to 'shop' for an organization s/he supports. Once a charity is listed on GST, it releases a wish-list of products that they need to continue their work. Then it is up to the users to buy the items! Essentially, GST makes donating way more tangible than writing a check. And for this month of June, Benelab will be purchasing and donating the LED lanterns through GivingSomeThing.com!