6846 - Charities

[scottobear]

I just heard the following quote:

"If we had paid no more attention to our plants than we have to our children, we would now be living in a jungle of weed."

--Luther Burbank, (1849-1926), American Naturalist

I'm curious about charities, and how people help one another lately.

My thing is giving blood, and doing the job I do... that's where I get the majority of my fulfillment from doing good works.

I'm curious... what do people who read my journal do to make the world a better place?

I know I have a few really nice folks that stop by. Its fun to interact with everyone, and I've learned quite a lot from people that are (amongst other things) parents, naturalists, social workers and teachers.

If you see this, and you're of a mind, let me know about what you might've done to help make the world a better place. Do you volunteer your time? Give money to an organization? If you're shy about that sort of stuff, feel free to post anonymously (I'll unscreen anony entries, once I'm sure they're not spam). I'm looking to see what manner of bases are typically covered.

Some of the big ones in my immediate vicinity seem to be:

Hurricane Relief
The Homeless
AIDS
Cancer
Missing Kids
Battered / Abused Women & Children
The Environment
Animal Welfare
The Hungry people overseas
Planned Parenthood

Something I rarely hear about anymore is Zero Population growth... is that viewed as selfish, these days?

Comments

[anony-moos.livejournal.com]

i have monthly direct debits to Cancer Research and Water Aid, who build wells in developing countries.
my mum does a lot of fund raising for Apnoea, who are a charity who raise money for alarm systems for parents to take home with them for babies at risk of cot death - it monitors their breathing and everything.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

very interesting, and kudos to you and your mom on your help!

nifty charities... Water Aid is interesting.. we forget how valuable such a basic resource it is!

[anony-moos.livejournal.com]

yeah. The Apnoea one is good, because they don't get much publicity - nobody's really heard of them, so it's good that my mum does all this crazy stuff for them. She holds soup mornings (like a coffee morning but with home made soup) and sells chocolate for them and stuff.
The water aid one - I was stopped once in town by one of those annoying students who's always trying to get money out of you on a Saturday mornign. Normally I tell them to get lost, but I liked the idea of giving people in developing countries the means to look after themselves, instead of just sending them a bottle of water or a package of food - a well will last longer. They also work to make sure water is kept clean and drinkable to avoid spread of disease.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

MmMm.. soup! Now that's a way to make a difference.

you're right.. there's something very empowering about helping someone to take care of themselves.. just giving them a jump-start.

[anony-moos.livejournal.com]

oh i forgot - a coupel of years ago i abseiled off the top of the local college for the RNIB. not because I have some affinity with blind people, but to prove a point - because I'm shit scared of heights and it was about 80 feet!

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

What's the rnib... and what's abseiling?

[anony-moos.livejournal.com]

Royal National Institution for the Blind.
Abseiling is... well you wear a harness and some rope, and stand on top of a building (or cliff top) and go backwards over it. You sort of walk backwards down the wall. the scariest part is, in order to move downwards at all, you have to basically let go of the rope that's going through your harness, and let it run through your fingers.
I had massive bruises on my waist afterwards, from where all my body weight was hanging off this harness around me waist. You have to keep your body at 90 degrees to the building, or it all goes a bit wrong and you end up breaking your nose! It was a wicked experience.
They do things like that all the time - parachute jumps, all sorts...

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

ah, that makes sense... abseiling sounds fun! sort of secret-agenty.

[anony-moos.livejournal.com]

haha! It would have been really secret-agently -- if I hadn't been pooing my pants the whole time!!!

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

hee. Well, I'm sure some agents get spooked on the first mission.

[anony-moos.livejournal.com]

something I found really "nice" (for want of a better word) was an Italian lady on my friends page, who has just moved to the UK. She wasn't having much luck finding a jo, so she volunteered to work in a charity shop until she found work. I thought that was really nice, and a lot of people could follow her example.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

that's a great solution to a problem!

wow, if you got the whole unemployed work force to volunteer, you could move mountains!

[rosin-dubh.livejournal.com]

I haven't got the funds or the time to really donate in an official way to anyone... but I do my best to be nice and courteous to people, which seems to be rare enough these days. I'm on a little bit of a crusade to help the Gay Rights campaign, because I can't stand to see the gov't passing laws to discriminate against a group of people who have done nothing other than be different. But again - little time & funding, so all I am able to do is sound my voice against it (and my votes, when the time comes).

Hrm... Zero Population growth... I guess I'm participating in that too, since I never plan to breed. I don't think it's selfish at all - it's creating/leaving a space for someone else to fill, or building just a tiny bit of surplus to go around to the rest of the world.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

voting is certainly a way to help to make the world a better place, as is courtesy. spreading the word is often a good way to help, too.

Thanks for the input!

what region are you in?

[rosin-dubh.livejournal.com]

Grew up in the Detroit area of Michigan, went to school in the Upper Penninsula, now in north-central Kansas.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

where would you say you've encountered the most courteous people in your travels?

[rosin-dubh.livejournal.com]

Definitely the UP - where they greet you and tell you to have a good day, and actually mean it. Where they're nice because they want to be, not because they have to be, and where you don't get snarled at by people, but smiled at instead. I miss it, but try to spread the idea of it where I go.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

I like to think of courtesy as infectious... I've noticed a big difference in just being genuinely friendly to strangers.

[pilarcruz.livejournal.com]

I give money to NARAL. Not much because I'm broke ass. I also dabble in cancer charity (mom died of it).

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

pro-choice is an interesting variant on planned parenthood.

it's interesting that NARAL's stopped using the name as an acronym... I wonder if the word abortion is too deflective to the average reader?

NARAL used to be an acronym that stood for "National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League." As of January 2003, however, the National organization changed its name from NARAL to NARAL Pro-Choice America. At that point in time, the national organization chose to stop spelling out the acronym.

[juliabee.livejournal.com]

Animal shelter! Apparently people are not lining up to do it because they don't want to step foot in the shelter shelter, because it makes them upset/sad. :(

Charity = American cancer society.

In the future I'd like to give to a hospice/elderly type of thing. I've never heard anyone I know mention the elderly...but they've all helped children, or middle-aged adults.

[juliabee.livejournal.com]

Oh..and I'd like to give to an organization that helps out in Afghanistan, or Iraq. One that's American based and helps children with shoes, or warm things to go to school in. Or food, so they're not starving all day at school. :(

I have a bunch of places bookmarked, but haven't followed through on it yet.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Ah, animal shelters are great... I get the "take 'em all home" urge whenever I go inside, though.

I suspect more people avoid the elder-hospice sort of thing for the same reason as animal shelter.. it can be heartbreaking.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

let me know, once you've whittled down your bookmarks!

[kscare.livejournal.com]

I used to do volunteering for the Easter Seals ages 3-7.
I was an instructor.
Zero pop growth doesn't seem like a type of charity to me. It seems more like a personal choice that has little if any benefit.

I mean if you believe in zero pop growth, then why not detonate a nuclear bomb and kill hundreds? It's much more effective at reducing the amount of consumed resources.

Or hey, here's a novel idea. Let's just work to correct the free trade system and distribute the resources more evenly.

Zero population growth gives non-child bearing adults a reason to feel good about themselves and makes them feel like they are being useful

In reality, it does virtually nothing.
It only diverts attention from valid thoughts/ solutions to the matter.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Well, I think the idea of not adding more is different than subracting ones already there. ;)

You can still be for zero population growth, and adopt a pile of children, it's just not adding any more to the mix. (I do have a rather selfish desire to sire biological children, but I think that adoption is probably a kinder solution to the planet as a whole.)

Resource distribution is tricky, as soon as greed gets into the picture. people making piles of cash off of other people starving gets my goat, but good.

Easter Seals! What was that like?

[kscare.livejournal.com]

hah! yes you may be right. I'm a bit bitchy today. My cat stayed on my bed all night and made it hard to breathe. Damn the fuzzy-wuzzy.

Resource distribution is tricky, especially since we are one of the power elite. Corporate greed and the free trade system go hand in hand, what can I say?

Working for the Easter Seals was great. It was by far one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. I was working mainly with Autistic kids, helping them to meet developmental and behavior goals through play and interaction.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

aww. Newt sleeps in bed with me all the time, too, generally right on my neck.
(I've mastered pinning him under my chin, so I can breathe)

I wonder what incentives could be put in place to minimize the graft factor?

The autism work sounds very rewarding. was there a favorite game?

poverty

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

in related news -

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=TEI2AXUWE1MUWCRBAEOCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=6080052

Nearly 36 Million Americans Living in Poverty
Thu Aug 26, 2004 11:45 AM ET
by Andrea Hopkins

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some 1.3 million Americans slid into poverty in 2003 as the ranks of the poor swelled to 35.9 million, with children and blacks worse off than most, the U.S. government said on Thursday in a report sure to fuel Democratic criticism of President Bush.

Despite the economic recovery, the percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty rose to 12.5 percent -- the highest since 1998 -- from 12.1 percent in 2002, the Census Bureau said in its annual poverty report. The widely cited scorecard on the nation's economy showed one-third of those in poverty were children.

The number of U.S. residents without health care coverage also rose last year to the highest level since 1999 and incomes were essentially stagnant, the Census Bureau said.

The poverty line is set at an annual income of $9,573 or less for an individual, or $18,660 for a family of four with two children. Under that measure, a family would spend about a third of its income on food.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has argued Bush's economic stewardship, including three rounds of tax cuts since 2001, has done more to help wealthy Americans than the poor or middle class.

But analysts have said the poverty rate typically tracks the broad economy, rising during a recession and falling in boom times. America has struggled to recover from the 2001 slump, and job creation has lagged behind overall growth.

The poverty rate has risen each year since 2000, when it was 11.3 percent. It hit a record low 11.1 percent in 1973.

Children and most racial minorities again fared worse in 2003 than the overall population, according to the Census report. The rate of child poverty rose to 17.6 percent from 16.7 percent in 2002 -- boosting the number of poor children to 12.9 million.

The poverty rate of African Americans remained nearly twice the national rate, with 24.4 percent of blacks living below the poverty line in 2003, nearly unchanged from 24.1 percent a year earlier.

The report showed real median income for all races was unchanged at $43,318 in 2003, while the number of Americans with no health care coverage rose to 45.0 million from 43.6 million in 2002.

Democrats criticized the government's decision to release the highly anticipated report in mid-August -- when many people are on vacation -- rather than sticking to the usual September release. They also said the decision to release both the health insurance and poverty statistics in the same report was a bid to minimize media coverage of the worsening lives of the poor.

"Hmmmm. We wonder if these moves have anything to do with the fact that George Bush is running for re-election. Remember, the last time that the annual census figures were released in August was in 1992 to hide bad news in an election year," the Kerry campaign said in a statement.