This year, however, Colbert has decided to use his birthday for good by signing up with DonorsChoose.org and — in lieu of present — asking people to donate to help schools instead. He writes, “Nation, May 13th is an important day. My birthday. Please help me celebrate by donating to one of the needy classroom projects below. DonorsChoose makes me feel like every day is my birthday. That, and my 364 counterfeit driver’s licenses. You can donate your birthday too. And the great thing is, if you give your birthday away, you don’t age that year. Look it up.”

Check out the video Colbert made below — or hit the jump here to donate. Also, one more thing — we lost a celebrity May 13th birthday club member recently and I wanted to send a shout out. Bea Arthur, we’ll miss you.

KING: Rue, PETA can be pretty rough, can’t they?

MCCLANAHAN: No. I think they do it exactly the way it should be done. They do it through the courts. They do it legally and they make a lot of changes in the way animals are suffering. I really admire them. I’ve been with them for years and I just — they — I can’t say enough wonderful things about how they operate.

Oh snap, King! Rue McClanahan just gave you a Golden Girls double-slam with extra sass. Take that to your hyperbaric sleeping chamber (Larry King will live forever!) and smoke it!

Check out the full transcript here.

Thanks to the always wonderful Erin for the tip!

Best known for her work on Golden Girls, Bea Arthur’s career spanned decades. However, it’s her dedication to animals that many are remembering in the days after her passing. According to PETA.org:

“An honorary PETA director and the winner of multiple PETA Humanitarian Awards, Bea Arthur joined PETA in 1987, when the Golden Girls did an anti-fur episode and Arthur, Rue McClanahan, and Betty White filmed a PETA anti-fur PSA on the set of the show.

A tireless advocate for animals, Bea campaigned against the force-feeding of ducks in the foie gras trade, travelling to London with PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk, where she called on Harrod’s to stop selling the cruelly made pâté.

Bea also called for a boycott of KFC until it improves the way it raises and kills its chickens, campaigned against animal experimentation, spoke out about the abuse of animals on factory farms, and was a vocal opponent of the use of exotic animals in circuses.”

She loved PETA so much that her family has asked that donations be made to the organization in lieu of flowers. 

The Ecorazzi crew sends our very best to Bea’s friends and family. She will be missed.

The title pretty much explains it all, but in case you’re still shaking your head with confusion I’ll explain further. Everyone deserves a happy birthday, and what could be happier than an Ecorazzi hip, hip hooray. Each time one those good-hearted, green-living, animal-loving, famous faces gets a year older, we’ll toast their green achievements with this special new feature.

Up first: Stephen Colbert and Bea Arthur! True, their birthdays were yesterday, but this is a brand new feature, people…give us a break!

Yesteday Stephen Colbert celebrated a jolly 44 years of charitable wonderfulness. Stephen’s been featured on Ecorazzi before for his work in raising $171,000 for charity with his broken wrist and raising an additional $50,605 on eBay for Save The Children. We think Stephen’s totally rad and look forward to covering all his future charitable achievements.

The second star we’d like to toast has never been featured on the Razz, but she certainly deserves a salute. Everybody give it up for Bea Arthur who turned eighty-frigin-six yesterday. Bea has spent much of her time as an animal advocate working with PETA and other animal rights organizations. A while back she told The Pet Press, “I’ve always been very intolerant of animal abuse. I don’t know exactly when I started being so aware- it was at a very early age. I work very heavily with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I really wonder about my sanity sometimes, because I will never go to Spain… I will never give them a f–king nickel because of the bullfights. To me it’s like abusing a child.”

We did a little digging and found this PETA video from back in the day. So grab some vegan birthday day, sit back and watch Bea talk about pee. No…I’m not even joking! HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU GUYS