Pulling in my littlest sister

When my littlest sister (both in terms of height and age...she's 29) visited back around Thanksgiving, I played ATM and gave her cash in return for a check made out to one of the charities I donate to. She looked at it longingly and said she wished she had money to give away. Well, she probably won't for a few years yet, but I think I've come up with a solution to get her in the habit without costing her anything.

You know how most rebates are only one per household? Well, what if, when I buy multiple items like that, I submit one of them with her details...and once there's $20 or so accumulated, she can make a donation? I mean, the original money spent will have come from my ThaiForGood sessions, and it's essentially being "recycled" - first I get to buy something for one charity with it, then the cash gets donated to another.

The first thing I want her to try is applying $25 to a Kiva loan because it's interactive, personal, and comes with a lot of feedback. I think she'd really like that. After that, I could get her to think about what kinds of causes she'd like to support, then research a few and make suggestions. Hopefully she'll find it interesting enough to start reading up on such things on her own, but if not, she'll at least have the basics.

It begins at home, right?

My mom went to an early Thanksgiving dinner at her sister's last weekend, and was very upset to see how much pain my cousin is in. When he was 7 years old, he was struck by a car and got his leg broken in three places. Now he's 37 and has had several surgeries in recent years to clean out his now arthritic hip joint and messed-up knee, but still he's in constant pain. People think he's a primadonna taking taxis all the time, but apparently all the stairs up and down to the subway are torture.

Being a good aunt, my mother told him to call me whenever he's in midtown (he lives in Brooklyn), and that I'll work my Thai massage magic on him if I'm not busy. This is a huge compliment coming from my mother - she had a hard time believing that her brainiac child could do anything useful with her hands...until she had shoulder problems last summer from kayaking. She was the toughest nut to crack, and I completely won her over. Honestly, it should not have been that hard!

This morning, I dropped my cousin an email letting him know that I was totally cool with my mom extending the offer of my services. I also told him the only form of payment I would accept from him was a good cup of coffee. You see, like me, he's the "money guy" in his family and is constantly hit up for stuff by his mother and brother. I don't know if they openly ask or if they unload sob stories until he feels obligated -- he makes an insane amount of money doing voiceover work. So while picking up the tab for a few plane tickets or a piece of medical equipment for his handicapped nephew isn't financially a big deal to him, I understand more than most what it's like to feel like the family ATM. So I think it's really important that somebody in his family does something for him out of simple humanity.