Well, extending my services free to my cousin went over like a lead balloon. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I emailed him over 24 hours ago and there's been no response. And he's online a lot. I wouldn't mind if he declined, but to have my offer met with silence makes me feel like I did something wrong. I hate making a social faux pas...I do it all the time apparently. I think I need to make friends with weirdos and avoid conventional types.
So I guess any attempts to give at a local level will have to be significantly less personal in nature, and more removed than a first cousin. I've recently felt inspired to give domestically, mostly because of all the hype about impending economic doom. Given my new coupon habit and CVS customer card, my plan involves getting name-brand toiletries (as opposed to dollar-store items, which tend to suck) for free or nearly free and making a monthly drop-off at a nearby women's shelter, state-funded convalescent home, or other organization that helps out people in need of soap, deodorant, that sort of thing.
Although I haven't yet identified a place to bring things, I kicked off my stockpiling with a free bottle of Garnier Fructis shampoo (sale price + store credit cashback + $1 coupon = free...well, 19 cents in sales tax). I know, it's just one thing and hardly worth blogging about, but there are many blogs and forums devoted to getting deals like this at major drugstores, and I need to check them out. Today I just did the obvious - and got the $2 in "recycled money" (my term for their "Earned Care Bucks" store credit) lined up for the next purchase.
Oh, and what little cash may be involved can come from the jar of money I saved from couponing that's earmarked for charitable donation anyway. I absolutely love finding ways to fund good work without laying out "real money". Because yes, my income as a self-employed massage therapist is experiencing exaggerated fluctuations, but I can get through a year of this insanity before I need to make any drastic changes.
Showing posts with label Other. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Other. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Mixed Mexican 'Motions
Last week, at the start of my vacation on the Mayan Riviera (a disappointing destination that will not be repeated), I dropped off a bunch of little backpacks, school supplies and toys with a small local charity run by transplanted New Yorkers. I wish I had waited...
Playa del Carmen is a very cute tourist trap. I resented paying full American and even near-Manhattan prices for pretty much everything, trying to sign up for day trips only to find out it was a timeshare pitch in disguise, and being hassled to buy silver jewelry every time I set foot out my door. I've come to the conclusion that the smart Mexicans did an illegal stint here in the US, got fluent in English, and went back to fleece tourists. I did not see poverty...
...Until the drive back from Chichen Itza. On the way there, we took a pricey toll highway and decided to save the $25 and take the free road back, since reports I'd read said it only took about half an hour longer (lie - it took an extra 2 hours). But I'm glad we took that road because otherwise I wouldn't have seen the Third World destitution that is hidden from those who never leave beach resorts or cling closely to the bus tours. Holy cow. Despite having seen lots of businesses on Kiva that are run from the front room of someone's home, it was very different to see it in front of you. The homes were concrete blocks the size of a one-car garage, and by "front room", I mean the front half of the only room. Doors were open, and next to the refrigerated drinks or cell phone display case, you could see hammocks where the families slept and the thatched hut out back where they, I don't know, ate? bathed? In a couple of the towns, when cars slowed down for the vicious and plentiful speedbumps, entrepreneurial kids would come to the window offering oranges. And it was at those moments that I wish I had the little kites and paint sets and bookbags and checkerboards to hand out on the spot.
Ultimately, I felt the tourism industry in Mexico was creating a wealth/class gap that I felt very uncomfortable contributing to. Besides, beach vacations never really were my style. Lesson learned.
Playa del Carmen is a very cute tourist trap. I resented paying full American and even near-Manhattan prices for pretty much everything, trying to sign up for day trips only to find out it was a timeshare pitch in disguise, and being hassled to buy silver jewelry every time I set foot out my door. I've come to the conclusion that the smart Mexicans did an illegal stint here in the US, got fluent in English, and went back to fleece tourists. I did not see poverty...
...Until the drive back from Chichen Itza. On the way there, we took a pricey toll highway and decided to save the $25 and take the free road back, since reports I'd read said it only took about half an hour longer (lie - it took an extra 2 hours). But I'm glad we took that road because otherwise I wouldn't have seen the Third World destitution that is hidden from those who never leave beach resorts or cling closely to the bus tours. Holy cow. Despite having seen lots of businesses on Kiva that are run from the front room of someone's home, it was very different to see it in front of you. The homes were concrete blocks the size of a one-car garage, and by "front room", I mean the front half of the only room. Doors were open, and next to the refrigerated drinks or cell phone display case, you could see hammocks where the families slept and the thatched hut out back where they, I don't know, ate? bathed? In a couple of the towns, when cars slowed down for the vicious and plentiful speedbumps, entrepreneurial kids would come to the window offering oranges. And it was at those moments that I wish I had the little kites and paint sets and bookbags and checkerboards to hand out on the spot.
Ultimately, I felt the tourism industry in Mexico was creating a wealth/class gap that I felt very uncomfortable contributing to. Besides, beach vacations never really were my style. Lesson learned.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Updated Bits 'n' Pieces
Goods4Girls
I finally have everything I need - sewing machine, donated materials, specialty fabric, fasteners, and the one thing that's kept me from getting started: a basic how-to book, which just arrived this afternoon. It's time to figure out how to fire up the machine and what knobs and levers do what. My goal is to be proficient enough to produce a couple of donate-able pads before I leave for Mexico on the 21st, so that I can get feedback from the woman running the program as to whether they're good enough by the time I get back. Then I'll become an unstoppable sewing maniac! Oh, and a shout-out to the nice Freecyclers of Manhattan who let me take their old towels and unwanted flannel off their hands for this project.
Feed Villages
Elana Greene's goal is to raise $100,000 to fund a community garden/farm, train people in sustainable eco-farming techniques so they can turn a profit and provide school lunches for hundreds of kids. She has passed the $3K mark and funded the purchase of 9 acres of farmland, and I forwarded $50 to her a week ago.
Burma
I wish my prediction on the 6th had been way off base and that the powermad f*ckwits running Burma had opened their borders to humanitarian aid. I need to stop reading the news items about this, it's just too upsetting. Give it another 10 days and there won't be much point trying to help...I guess time will tell if there will be any point in following through with my intention to contribute to follow-up efforts in a few months.
My Little Giving Game
I had a great week of business last week, netting $89 for my giving fund. Half will be stored for future donation to bigger projects assuming business continues to flourish, and the other half will go towards...hm, so many choices. Watch this space.
Leftover Luggage Space For Good
This is not an official program (hence no clickable link), just a new habit I'd like to form: bring suitable in-kind donations to local orphanages and organizations in developing countries. Next week I head to the Mayan Riviera for a vacation and will be donating school supplies and toys to Give-A-Toy-Get-A-Smile and maybe the literacy library in Akumal (if for no other reason than the adventure of taking a local bus to a minimally-touristed destination).
I finally have everything I need - sewing machine, donated materials, specialty fabric, fasteners, and the one thing that's kept me from getting started: a basic how-to book, which just arrived this afternoon. It's time to figure out how to fire up the machine and what knobs and levers do what. My goal is to be proficient enough to produce a couple of donate-able pads before I leave for Mexico on the 21st, so that I can get feedback from the woman running the program as to whether they're good enough by the time I get back. Then I'll become an unstoppable sewing maniac! Oh, and a shout-out to the nice Freecyclers of Manhattan who let me take their old towels and unwanted flannel off their hands for this project.
Feed Villages
Elana Greene's goal is to raise $100,000 to fund a community garden/farm, train people in sustainable eco-farming techniques so they can turn a profit and provide school lunches for hundreds of kids. She has passed the $3K mark and funded the purchase of 9 acres of farmland, and I forwarded $50 to her a week ago.
Burma
I wish my prediction on the 6th had been way off base and that the powermad f*ckwits running Burma had opened their borders to humanitarian aid. I need to stop reading the news items about this, it's just too upsetting. Give it another 10 days and there won't be much point trying to help...I guess time will tell if there will be any point in following through with my intention to contribute to follow-up efforts in a few months.
My Little Giving Game
I had a great week of business last week, netting $89 for my giving fund. Half will be stored for future donation to bigger projects assuming business continues to flourish, and the other half will go towards...hm, so many choices. Watch this space.
Leftover Luggage Space For Good
This is not an official program (hence no clickable link), just a new habit I'd like to form: bring suitable in-kind donations to local orphanages and organizations in developing countries. Next week I head to the Mayan Riviera for a vacation and will be donating school supplies and toys to Give-A-Toy-Get-A-Smile and maybe the literacy library in Akumal (if for no other reason than the adventure of taking a local bus to a minimally-touristed destination).
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Enough - Part 2
I still like the 10% giving game I formulated a few weeks ago (10% of my disposable income rather than gross income), but a few hitches have arisen. One is that the advertising source that brings in nearly all my business is undergoing a major overhaul and, while I'm benefiting from it at the moment, I can see how it could all go wrong for me within a few weeks. Two is that I've never been through a down-swing in the economy before, and I have no idea how it will affect me.
So I'm tweaking the plan slightly...10% is still earmarked for charity, but only half of it will be distributed immediately. Then, if things are still going well in a few months, I'll use the other half to sponsor something bigger. I mean "bigger" in a relative sense, relative to my current $5-100 dribbles.
I've had my eye on Outreach Asia's scholarship program in the Philippines, sort of in memory of my father. He was placed at a bank in Manila for half a year when I was 4 years old - old enough to remember quite a bit about monsoon season, nursery school, the China Sea beaches, the fruit markets, the monstrous cockroaches, and even half of the national anthem in Tagalog. I would call that the high point of my father's life, though he lived 30 years beyond that. Anyway, we had two Filipino nannies (at $20/month each, why not have two for three kids?), who were working to put their brothers through college and occasionally asked for an additional $5 to help them. I think it would be a fitting memorial to put up $210/year to put one of these sidelined girls through college themselves.
So I'm tweaking the plan slightly...10% is still earmarked for charity, but only half of it will be distributed immediately. Then, if things are still going well in a few months, I'll use the other half to sponsor something bigger. I mean "bigger" in a relative sense, relative to my current $5-100 dribbles.
I've had my eye on Outreach Asia's scholarship program in the Philippines, sort of in memory of my father. He was placed at a bank in Manila for half a year when I was 4 years old - old enough to remember quite a bit about monsoon season, nursery school, the China Sea beaches, the fruit markets, the monstrous cockroaches, and even half of the national anthem in Tagalog. I would call that the high point of my father's life, though he lived 30 years beyond that. Anyway, we had two Filipino nannies (at $20/month each, why not have two for three kids?), who were working to put their brothers through college and occasionally asked for an additional $5 to help them. I think it would be a fitting memorial to put up $210/year to put one of these sidelined girls through college themselves.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Giving is PERSONAL
I love when a charity tells you what $XX buys, and I love it even more when you can choose exactly what your contribution buys. Sounds like I repeated myself, doesn't it. To illustrate the difference, donations to FINCA go into a microloan fund, whereas with Kiva, you can pick exactly which fledgling business you want to loan to. There are other differences between them (donation v. refundable loan, $50 first-time borrowers v. $500 borrowers with a history, etc), but today I'm focusing on how satisfying I find it to sponsor a specific person or small project, and below is a review of some of my favorite ideas, some of which I've given to while others are on deck. I think I developed a penchant for this kind of giving back in elementary school, when they handed out the little cardboard ricebowls for us to assemble and put our small change in...I remember that in 1977, $5 could feed a family in Bangladesh for a week. Call it my first lesson in the value of a dollar.
There is a large "charity warehouse" site that is a true joy for me to leaf through - GlobalGiving. You can pile up your selections in a shopping cart, and there's lots of information about the projects you're supporting, including the charity of origin. The founders are a pair of problem-solvers formerly affiliated with the World Bank. The downside: they take a 10% cut for their operating expenses. The upside: quite a few of the charities are so small and volunteer-driven that it's hard for them to put the manpower into fund-raising, so a site like this puts them on the donor map, and that 10% is well-spent. I also just discovered that GlobalGiving has a blog, so I'll be catching up on that this week. If you want to cut out this middleman, you can check out each charity's website on your own and see if you can send an earmarked donation that way, but I found that most are just set up for contributions to end up in a general fund. Another plus for this site: you can make a difference with as little as $10. Like, you can pay for the training of a Ugandan woman to produce therapeutic food that large charities buy for their emergency starvation projects in Africa...provides income for the woman and a local source of a much-needed product, saving on shipping and promoting sustainability - a project spearheaded by the International Medical Corps. Yeah, $10 doesn't even buy a martini in my 'hood these days.
Even biggies like UNICEF offer this option, labeled "Inspired Gifts" - like $15 for two mosquito nets to help fight malaria, and $17 for 50 liters of therapeutic milk formula for emergency measures to fight starvation.
AfricaAid lets you buy a portion of a project, and fills in each little piece with the donor's name, whether you're contributing $10 to educate 10 kids for a week or $400 for the lunch cook's annual salary. I kinda like this one, especially for a donation gift in someone else's name.
Here's one I'm saving up for: the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Fund, where $100 saves a little girl from bonded servitude, pays her school fees, and provides her family with an income-generating pig. Can you tell how much I love the pig part?
The more grassroots, the better. I like seeing one person or one couple out there trying to make a dent in the problems and imbalances in the world. You just know that if you handed them cash and said "it's for your charity", they wouldn't dream of putting it in their own pocket. That's the kind of people I want to deal with, and their causes are heartfelt and often creative because they answer to no one but their conscience. Yup, my kind of people.
There is a large "charity warehouse" site that is a true joy for me to leaf through - GlobalGiving. You can pile up your selections in a shopping cart, and there's lots of information about the projects you're supporting, including the charity of origin. The founders are a pair of problem-solvers formerly affiliated with the World Bank. The downside: they take a 10% cut for their operating expenses. The upside: quite a few of the charities are so small and volunteer-driven that it's hard for them to put the manpower into fund-raising, so a site like this puts them on the donor map, and that 10% is well-spent. I also just discovered that GlobalGiving has a blog, so I'll be catching up on that this week. If you want to cut out this middleman, you can check out each charity's website on your own and see if you can send an earmarked donation that way, but I found that most are just set up for contributions to end up in a general fund. Another plus for this site: you can make a difference with as little as $10. Like, you can pay for the training of a Ugandan woman to produce therapeutic food that large charities buy for their emergency starvation projects in Africa...provides income for the woman and a local source of a much-needed product, saving on shipping and promoting sustainability - a project spearheaded by the International Medical Corps. Yeah, $10 doesn't even buy a martini in my 'hood these days.
Even biggies like UNICEF offer this option, labeled "Inspired Gifts" - like $15 for two mosquito nets to help fight malaria, and $17 for 50 liters of therapeutic milk formula for emergency measures to fight starvation.
AfricaAid lets you buy a portion of a project, and fills in each little piece with the donor's name, whether you're contributing $10 to educate 10 kids for a week or $400 for the lunch cook's annual salary. I kinda like this one, especially for a donation gift in someone else's name.
Here's one I'm saving up for: the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Fund, where $100 saves a little girl from bonded servitude, pays her school fees, and provides her family with an income-generating pig. Can you tell how much I love the pig part?
The more grassroots, the better. I like seeing one person or one couple out there trying to make a dent in the problems and imbalances in the world. You just know that if you handed them cash and said "it's for your charity", they wouldn't dream of putting it in their own pocket. That's the kind of people I want to deal with, and their causes are heartfelt and often creative because they answer to no one but their conscience. Yup, my kind of people.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Farewell Fat Clothes
While I'm on vacation next month, I'll be illegally "subletting" my apartment to a Brazilian woman, and my mother reminded me that I'd need to do something about my piggy corners before then. A piggy-cornerer herself, she suggested that I clean out a closet and throw the piggy stuff into the newly-created space. So I finally got around to bagging up all the clothes that no longer fit, sizes 14-22. Oh, did I mention I once dipped my toe in the morbidly obese pool? Well, 78 lbs smaller, it's time to say farewell to the fat clothes - the ones I relatively liked and was hoarding in case I yo-yo'd back up to Size Lardass. And to help make sure I'd never need them again, I walked 15 lbs of donations 1.5 miles to a Housing Works thrift shop on the Upper Westside.
It was the wrong place to take my gently used size 18s. If the handles of my plastic bags hadn't been cutting into my moneymakers (a.k.a. hands - remember, I'm a massage therapist) for the past half hour, I'd have brought them back home and tried a church. What was so wrong about it? Well, my stuff came from stores like JC Penney and Old Navy, and it was larger than a size 10. This thrift store's demographic was rather obviously the fashionably fit under-40 crowd looking for a deal on mid-range designer gear. I only hope that they're the kind of place that sends its rejects to Goodwill, whose automated phone system put me on neverending hold.
So I take away a lesson about research and impulse. As admirable as my intentions were (in the past, all clothing went guiltily in the trash), I caused them some degree of hassle by giving them things they couldn't use. Had I clicked around their website a bit more, I'd probably have figured that out. But no, me and my tunnel vision just saw a place that was open and accepting donations right now, and off I went in pursuit of a selfish feelgood. There, I've rapped my own knuckles.
It was the wrong place to take my gently used size 18s. If the handles of my plastic bags hadn't been cutting into my moneymakers (a.k.a. hands - remember, I'm a massage therapist) for the past half hour, I'd have brought them back home and tried a church. What was so wrong about it? Well, my stuff came from stores like JC Penney and Old Navy, and it was larger than a size 10. This thrift store's demographic was rather obviously the fashionably fit under-40 crowd looking for a deal on mid-range designer gear. I only hope that they're the kind of place that sends its rejects to Goodwill, whose automated phone system put me on neverending hold.
So I take away a lesson about research and impulse. As admirable as my intentions were (in the past, all clothing went guiltily in the trash), I caused them some degree of hassle by giving them things they couldn't use. Had I clicked around their website a bit more, I'd probably have figured that out. But no, me and my tunnel vision just saw a place that was open and accepting donations right now, and off I went in pursuit of a selfish feelgood. There, I've rapped my own knuckles.
Friday, April 11, 2008
$1 At The Register
I don't like it when I'm checking out at a store and they pull out this pad of colorful shapes and hit me with "Would you like to make a $1 donation to [CharityOfOurChoice]?" It's always a children's charity, and it makes me feel like a cretin to say "No" after the cashier has just rung up all kinds of super-important items like hand sanitizer and discounted holiday chocolate. But I like to think about it, savor it (the donation prospect, not the chocolate!), make an informed decision...which is maybe too much thought for a dollar. I mean, really. A buck. Well then why doesn't the big megachain I'm shopping in just write a fat check if they want to support a particular charity? They've got way more money than I do. And it's not like they're even matching their customers' contributions. Hey, now there's an idea.
But this week I experienced a different spin on this model: I bought a big pack of batteries for an expensive gadget (that I still feel a little guilt for blowing so much money on, even though I swear it's worth every penny) at Rite Aid, and this came with a $1 donation - and a nifty balloon-shaped banner with my name on it for the fundraising wall - to Children's Miracle Network. I can't figure out why they asked for my approval since it cost me nada, maybe a legal thing?, but this nothing-out-of-your-pocket approach gets the nod from me.
Of course I googled the charity as soon as I got home. It was founded by the Osmond family, raises funds for 170 children's hospitals in the U.S. and gets 3 stars from CharityNavigator - definitely worth a dollar that didn't even come out of my pocket.
Charitable Act Of The Day: Bought a bargain bookbag ($5) to add to the pile for the programs in Mexico I'll be supporting on my vacation next month.
But this week I experienced a different spin on this model: I bought a big pack of batteries for an expensive gadget (that I still feel a little guilt for blowing so much money on, even though I swear it's worth every penny) at Rite Aid, and this came with a $1 donation - and a nifty balloon-shaped banner with my name on it for the fundraising wall - to Children's Miracle Network. I can't figure out why they asked for my approval since it cost me nada, maybe a legal thing?, but this nothing-out-of-your-pocket approach gets the nod from me.
Of course I googled the charity as soon as I got home. It was founded by the Osmond family, raises funds for 170 children's hospitals in the U.S. and gets 3 stars from CharityNavigator - definitely worth a dollar that didn't even come out of my pocket.
Charitable Act Of The Day: Bought a bargain bookbag ($5) to add to the pile for the programs in Mexico I'll be supporting on my vacation next month.
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