Charity

[maddy]

I'm feeling financially blessed after many years of putting my career first in my life. I'm ready to give back and am drawn to many different charitable organizations ...

... after listening to the local country station do their St Jude Country Cares tel-a-thon do their thing for the past two days (and shedding a tear or three in the car), I made the call, donated and feel proud and honored to be one of their millions of supporters....

So, tell me Pixies which charitable organizations do you support financially, emotionally, physically, or by any other means...

[Lilith]

I'm a Guardian Ad Litem. I just give me. I also have donated to Locks of Love.

[Steph]

I gave money for a while (great for taxes), now I give my time because I don't have money. I write letters to dictators & quote Cat Stevens, I knock on doors for one of Canada's leftie parties & I edit a LBGT newsletter when they need it.

I helped out my local Habitat chapter because of a Pixie, too. Awwwwwwwwww, so sweet. :)

[maddy]

btw - my edit remark did say typO - I swear on a stack of dirt!

[sodaklostsoul]

I support kiddo's fund raiser's in school....her recent one was a mathathon for St. Judes. Last year she did Jump rope for Heart.

[BIBI]

I donate my time to a couple of causes near and dear to me. I also sponser a family at Christmas time.

[osuche]

We give to GoodWill, the Arrthritis Foundation, the Red Cross, and The Ohio State University. I've also been note to donate to the Diabetes Assn., although we didn't this year.

I've historically given my time to mentoring college women engineers, and to Junior Achievement (education). I also served in a soup kitchen last year.

[fzzy]

Over the years I've done a variety of things, helped with community clean up days in my town, gave time in political campaigns, crocheted bandages for people with leoprasy (sp?) in other countries, helped make quilts, toys, etc., I've given money to various causes, donated books and such to libraries and prisoners, and gave odds and ends to thrift shops that support various charities ... it sounds like lots, but the time and energy has been contributed in bits and pieces for the most part, donation of funds and time have been something I've done all my life, it was part of my upbringing ... I literally remember doing it before I was even in school.

Many of these activities and donations have been sponsored by the church I belong to, so it's often been as much of a social event with people I love spending time with anyway. But for a number of years, I donated 1-5 Saturdays a month for a cause I hold very close to my heart ... between the traveling to and from and the time spent in the effort, it was usually 10-12 hours per Saturday that I was involved. My schedule ultimately changed and so I no longer do that, but it was a wonderful time, and I can honestly say that I got so much more out of it then I could have ever put into it!

[1nutworld]

I've made donations almost every year to the United Way, and the Make A Wish foundation.

[dicksbro]

Several ... The Alzheimer's Foundation; St. Jude; Musclar Dystrophy; Race for the Cure; and others. Our pride is the young Mexican girl that we sponsor. We'ver sponsored her now for about four years and she's a delightful young lady.

[LixyChick]

My heart is in Habitat...but I'm giving more to The Red Cross this year. I've also donated my state tax return to Breast Cancer Awareness this tax time.

[Lilith]

I am becoming so cynical and have a problem with donating $$ period. I fear the $$ going to cover overhead and it never truly making a difference. Recently I heard some statistics regarding a charity started by Stephen King and his wife. The overhead costs were something like .01 percent. This has changed my view a bit and now I'm seeking out info on groups who do good work and have very low overhead. Anybody have any ideas?

[maddy]

Excellent point, Lilith. I recall looking at that once upon a time but have not done so recently. From what I recall it tends to be the smaller local organizations rather than the larger national/global ones.

[Jax]

We give a fair amount to our Church, to the United Way, and then a lot of the misc charitys - AHA, Samariton's purse, local food shelf, local zoos etc.

Don't get me wrong by the #s. We give what we can, but we don't get anywhere near to giving enough away. (Big believer in how lucky we are in life).

My favorite charity to work at is a local once every three month lunch thing we do at a Kids Crisis Nursery. We cook lunch for the kids and the staff. Small group thing. Fun.

[Coaster]

Well being self employed, everybody hits us up! And they are all great causes......

I'm in training right now to do an 180 mile bicycle ride this summer with about 1500 other peeps.... funds go to the American Lung Assoc. I wouldn't mind Lance Armstrong being my riding buddy if any of you know him!!! I wish I knew Chris & Dana Reeves son, I'd invite him along too! If any of you want to help sponsor me, PM me please.... my personal goal is $1000. Thanks for helping whatever your cause is..... they surely need folks like you! :)

[mayhem1978]

There is an annual telephone type thing here in the UK called Children In Need. It supports the children in the UK and i was amazed last year in 9 hours they raised £18 million. I always give something to that. Also im giving my spare PC time to cancer reasearch.

[Scarecrow]

I gave time and money for 25 yrs to the Local Girl Scout Council, 11yrs on the Board of Directors (6yrs as secretary). Now I give mainly to the local food bank.

[fzzy]

Lil .. I don't know if it is still the case, but I know that Oprah's Angel network had all of the overhead costs paid by Oprah separate from donations, and they had different corps that were willing to match all or a portion of donations received.

But I hear what you're saying about that, I know there were some big scandals a few years ago and some of the organizations were paying large salaries, etc., so that as much as 70-90% was going to "overhead". That's one of the reasons I like doing a lot of my donations through my church because in my church all of the overhead is paid from outside of the donations, and there are various ways that you can earmark donations for specific causes.

[jseal]

There is an organization to which we donate money called Food For The Poor, Inc. (http://www.foodforthepoor.org/site/c.dnJGKNNsFmG/b.734555/k.CBEA/Home.htm), which focuses on the poor in the Caribbean. They have a documented delivery rate of 96%, with an overhead of less than 1%. I know there are many here at "home" who are deserving, but these are some of the most desperately poor people in the Western Hemisphere.

While I don’t recommend it to anybody, think about offering your unused bedroom for a night or two to someone who needs a hand up, rather than a hand out. We can make a personal contribution.

[imaginewithme]

I like to help out Hospice since they helped when my grandpa was dying three years ago (this month).

We also helped out locally when some evacuees ended up in our town from Hurricane Katrina.