Is it that time again already?

It seems like we were just writing about last year’s Ante Up For Africa — the celebrity-saturated poker tournament co-founded by actor Don Cheadle to help raise some much needed cash for the crisis in Darfur.

This past Thursday, 138 players (including some professionals) joined celebs like Sarah Silverman, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Alexander, Nelly, Cedric the Entertainer, Herschel Walker, Charles Barkley, Dean Cain and Brad Garrett. For the first time, ESPN carried the event — which should shed even more light on this important cause.

From the website,

“Three years ago we founded Ante Up for Africa, a charity to raise money for relief efforts in Darfur through poker events. When we founded the charity we approached Jeffrey Pollack, the Commissioner of the World Series of Poker, who was so enthusiastic about the cause that he jumped in with both feet and had the WSOP partner with us. AUFA became an official WSOP event and our first year we raised $700K. Before Thursday our charity had raised $2.1m for the Darfuri people.”

Check out some photos from the event below:

Matt Damon is encouraging people to sign a petition asking senators to help cosponsor the Durbin-Corker Water for the World Act of 2009. Over 100 million people would stand to benefit from the passage of the legislation, which would increase access to clean water and sanitation by 2015. Damon is seeking an additional 15 cosponsors to move the act forward.

“On my trip with the ONE Campaign to Zambia, I walked two miles with a 14-year-old girl to a well—the closest water source to her village,“ said Damon. “I asked if she wanted to stay in her village when she grew up, and her face exploded into a huge smile. The translator said, “she is being very shy…she says that she wants to move to big city, Lusaka, and that she wants to be a nurse.”

“Women and girls, like the one I met in Zambia, bear most of the burden of lack of access to clean water and adequate sanitation. Women are more than twice as likely as men to be responsible for water collection, and on average, women in the developing world walk three and a half miles each day to collect water—time that could be spent in school or at work.

“Economically, water is one of the smartest poverty-fighting investments we can make. My friend Ben Affleck and I met with the World Bank and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) in Tanzania, and we saw how a lack of good water infrastructure is holding back businesses. We talked to Prosper Mbarewoai of Allied Chemicals, who estimated his detergent-production business is operating at only 60% capacity because he spends anywhere from two hours to an entire day just getting water.

“The MCC in Tanzania is working to revamp the water treatment and supply infrastructure in two major cities, decreasing the risks of water-borne illness and enabling business productivity. In fact, every $1 spent on water and sanitation generates a return of $8 in saved time, increased productivity and reduced health costs in Africa.

“Improving access to clean water and sanitation is also an investment in women, making possible the dreams of young girls in Zambia and beyond. To help make this change happen for her and 884 million others worldwide who live without clean water, please ask your senators to cosponsor the Water for the World Act.“

Currently, the petition is at 57% of its goal of 100,000 signatures. Click here to sign and support the act!

Ben Affleck isn’t the only celebrity fighting for the Congolese people.

Nicole Richie has just released a new video also urging people to support ending genocide, rape, and violence in the Congo. The actress begins her appeal saying, “I’m going to tell you a story about a place where grandmothers and babies are raped on a daily basis…and the reason they are being raped is directly related to the purchases of our cell phones, our laptops, and of our ipods.”

Richie then goes on to introduce Kimberly Pinkson from the Ecomom Alliance and John Pendergast from the EnoughProject.org. Both organizations are partnering to help drive suppor to end these atrocities. Richie writes on her website,

Please, I urge you to take the time to watch the film “The Greatest Silence”  (for info and purchase go to http://thegreatestsilence.org). The crisis in the Congo is fueled by conflict minerals, but I’ve included several steps below that we believe will also help to bring this vicious cycle to an end.  By using our power as consumers and activists, we ALL can make an impact!

You can take a look at Nicole’s video below:

“The picture of the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo has grown tragically familiar: a region with great natural wealth, driven by war, racked with hunger and traumatized by a long history of colonial abuse, postcolonial kleptocracy and plunder. In the past 10 years alone, millions have died here, and more die each day as a result of the conflict. Most die not from war wounds but from starvation or disease. A lack of infrastructure means there is little medical care in the cities and none in rural communities, so any infection can be a death sentence. The most vulnerable suffer the worst. One in five children in Congo will die before reaching the age of 5and will do so out of sight of the world, in places that camera crews cannot reach, deep in a vast landscape and concealed under a canopy of bucolic jungle.

It is common in the West to read about African lives in grim statistical terms, so we’ve become inured to these huge numbers of deaths. Making matters worse, the conflict in Congo is often seen as a hopelessly byzantine African tribal war, encouraging the damning notion that nothing will ever change. This, of course, creates a sense of hopelessness and nothing cuts down on humanitarian, foreign and development assistance so much as the jaded diminution of hope. The nation most in need of investment gets the least by the cruel logic that it is the most broken. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy that ultimately fosters indifference in the guise of wisdom.

That should not be the case in Congo.”

Click here to continue reading Affleck’s new article…

“We made this film in order to focus attention on the humanitarian crisis in the DRC at a time when too much of the world is indifferent or looking the other way,” said Affleck. “The suffering and loss we’ve all seen first-hand is staggering — it is beyond belief. We all need to stand up and support the work of organizations like UNHCR who are on the ground offering protection and working hard to ensure the rights and well-being of refugees,” he added.

Joining Affleck in the effort is Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger — who donated the Stones’ hit “Gimmie Shelter”from their 1969 album “Let it Bleed”.”I hope this video will help highlight the plight of the hundreds of thousands of displaced people and also the thousands of innocent people who are needlessly losing their lives there,” he said.

Over $23 million is expected to be raised through sales of the video. All of the money will benefit relief organizations in the region. Gimme Shelter will be distributed world wide via the internet, television, mobile phones, cinemas and hotel chains.

Hathaway kicked off a new campaign sponsorded by Netflix and Feeding America to help raise awareness and funds to combat the worsening hunger crisis in America.

Stars like Scarlett Johansson, Ben Affleck and Jessica Alba have also got involved by pledging their time to create holiday-themed artwork that will adorn Netflix gift subscriptions this holiday season, proceeds from which will be donated to Feeding America.

In addition, each actor’s work will be featured in a limited-edition Netflix Holiday Gift Box, a red, velvet-lined commemorative showcase featuring an individually signed and numbered print and a lifetime membership to Netflix. Only 100 boxes have been produced and and each cost 5,000 big ones! Of course, one hundred percent of the $5,000 donation will go to Feeding America and is equivalent to providing 80,000 meals to those in need this holiday season. Good deal!

To find out more, visit FeedingAmerica.org!

“I’m not an expert in international affairs or diplomacy, but it doesn’t take that to see the tremendous suffering here,” he told The Associated Press on Thursday in Goma, the regional capital. “It’s not something that we as human beings can, in good conscience, ignore.”

“I’m really glad that more people are paying more attention to (Congo) now but I’m really saddened that it’s taken this uptick in violence to make that happen,” Affleck said. “My hope in being here is primarily to bring attention to the fact that there’s a real lack of (aid agencies) here, a real lack of money going to these folks.”

Here at the Razz we’re stoked to see Affleck getting involved in a big way and helping to bring peace to a struggling nation. To view more pictures from his time in the Congo, visit popsugar.

photo credit: prphotos.com

The Little Stamp Company

Spice Girl Mel C is inviting you to adopt. Along with fellow celebs Kim Wilde and comedian Timmy Mallet, Mel is promoting the Adopt a Word campaign, an initiative of I Can. I Can supports speech skills for children with special needs, and by making a donation to adopt a word for a year, you can help a youngster learn to communicate.

Freaky-beautiful (anybody who can make human meat pies, kill Sirius Black, and still seduce King Arthur is entitled to that description!) Helena Bonham Carter is the new patron of Action Duchenne, a UK muscular dystrophy charity. She says, “As a patron of Action Duchenne, I would like to urge as many people as possible to find out about the work of the charity and the devastating effects of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Treatments and a cure seem tantalisingly close but they will not appear without further support and funding. Please join Action Duchenne in helping to make muscle wasting history.”

Nick Lachey will be hosting the third annual Tacoma All-Star Celebrity Weekend September 21-22 to support the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Tacoma General Hospital and the Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital Parenting Partnership Program (say that one three times fast). So far $1.4 million has been raised for these charities in the past; this year Nick and Sarah Larson, Ryan Stiles, Vanessa Minnillo and other celebs will be playing softball at Cheney Stadium in hopes of raising even more.

The Detroit Red Wings are hosting the Ilitch Charities Celebrity Golf Classic today. Tim Allen, Dave Coulier, John Cusack, Cuba Gooding Jr., Thorsten Kaye, John McGinley, D.B. Sweeney and others will be playing to support Ilitch Charities, which supports community programs in community development, human services, education and recreation. 

Ben Affleck, Seth Meyers, Paul Rudd and Sarah Silverman will be playing at the PPA’s “Poker in the Ballpark” charity tournament tomorrow in support of the Paralyzed Veterans of America. Wait, check out that lineup again. I would love to be a fly on the wall to just hear the conversations between these people. Can you imagine?

Australian singer and soap star Imogen says it’s nice to be sexy for a cause. “One of the funny things about doing PETA work and other campaigns and then doing a lot of mens’ mag stuff is that I’ve always had this internal debate. Am I being a powerful female or, as some people might think, objectifying myself to men? But it’s been nice to do some sexy images that have a strong message.”