83 Degrees: Happy Birthday! Happy Holidays!

Hey, they say it's our birthday! Yay, yay, yay, it's 83 Degrees' birthday!

Thank you for two years of reading and sharing 83 Degrees Media's powerful stories featuring Tampa Bay’s talented people, innovative ideas and investments, global diversity and sense of place.

To celebrate? Well, we thought about a party. We thought about a dance. We thought about a toast to stories and romance.

But alas, in our own ongoing effort to make a difference in the Tampa Bay region, we decided that for our second birthday on Nov. 17, we would partner with Connect Your Cause and urge you to be generous by honoring 83 Degrees Media with a birthday gift donation to your favorite charity or nonprofit organization.

You know, times are tough, and we're all in this economy together. Let's all do something to help those who are less fortunate.

How about giving $8.30 (the cost of a microbrew)? Or $20.83 (the equivalent price of taking your sweetie to the movies?) Or $83 (dinner for two and a bottle of wine)? Or $830 (we can dream!)? You get the idea! Use your imagination.

The exact amount doesn't matter as much as does the idea of everyone giving back to the community and the way it will make you feel in return.

Connect Your Cause will track the number of donors who give in amounts using "83''s. Then the nonprofit that adds the greatest number of donors by December 27 will receive matching funds of $830 from an anonymous donor!

Simply click on this link to Connect Your Cause and choose from more than 150 nonprofits that are working to make Tampa Bay a better place.

Diane Egner is the publisher and managing editor of 83 Degrees Media. Comments? Contact 83 Degrees.
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Diane Egner is a community leader and award-winning journalist with more than four decades of experience reporting and writing about the Tampa Bay Area of Florida. She serves on the boards of the University of South Florida Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications Advisory Council, The Institute for Research in Art (Graphicstudio, the Contemporary Art Museum, and USF’s Public Art Program) Community Advisory Council, Sing Out and Read, and StageWorks Theatre Advisory Council. She also is a member of Leadership Florida and the Athena Society. A graduate of the University of Minnesota with a BA in journalism, she won the top statewide award for editorial writing from the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors while at The Tampa Tribune and received special recognition by the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists for creative work as Content Director at WUSF Public Media. Past accomplishments and community service include leadership positions with Tampa Tiger Bay Club, USF Women in Leadership & Philanthropy (WLP), Alpha House of Tampa Bay, Awesome Tampa Bay, Florida Kinship Center, AIA Tampa Bay, Powerstories, Arts Council of Hillsborough County, and the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce. Diane and her husband, Sandy Rief, live in Tampa.