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Charities, foundations, beggars

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Loki:
I donate a small sum monthly to a local charity who helped a friend of mine when she was in need.
I am also registered as a stem cell donor.

94ssd:
I don't have a lot of money to give, but I have some and I like to volunteer when I can. I've donated to the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation, because that personally affects me. I have donated blood to the Red Cross (even though until recently I was not supposed to be allowed to, shhhh...) and am registered as a bone marrow donor. I've volunteered at auctions, walks, and other events held by the MS Society, which I got involved in because my aunt has it. I've volunteered at the local humane society. I've also volunteered at the local food pantry, and a really cool pay-what-you-can restaurant downtown. And recently an LGBT center opened in my hometown, so I've worked at the desk there some.

When I was a church-going lad, we would go down to Kentucky to work with this charity called Mountain Outreach, pretty similar to Habitat for Humanity, just building homes for folks. I learned a lot about carpentry and electrics there. And then I've volunteered with Habitat some, but they are a bit less hands-on at their job sites.

I once went on a sort of "voluntourism" trip to Jamaica through my school that I'm not 100% proud of now. We walked supplies into a rural village, helped add a wing onto someone's house, and hung out at nursing homes (which in Jamaica are mainly for people with mental disabilities who are homeless). I still consider it a great personal experience but in retrospect I now know why those types of trips can actually be counterproductive to charity work in other countries.

One charity I'd like to get involved in someday that I only recently discovered is the Kevin Spacey Foundation, which has a goal of bringing creative arts to communities where children normally wouldn't have the opportunity to learn about it.

explicit:

--- Quote from: 94ssd on 29 Dec 2014, 07:26 --- I still consider it a great personal experience but in retrospect I now know why those types of trips can actually be counterproductive to charity work in other countries.


--- End quote ---

That's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. It's perfectly okay to like the experience, but I hate when people think they did a great thing. Awesome gesture, don't get me wrong and I don't want to take that away from anyone, but good intentions don't always produce the best results (I didn't mean to hate on you or anything, I'm real sorry if it came across that way, I'm just agreeing with your assessment).

In any case, I don't have much money to give either. If I see a charity box or a homeless person I usually give a dollar or whatever change I happen to have. Sometimes, if I really agree with the cause I'll put in a little more, though the most I ever gave at once was like $20.

I plan on giving much more when I have an actual, real person job, and I hope that's not empty promises.

One thing my family as a whole did was create an event (that will at least expand into next year) for the Wounded Warrior Project. We raised $100,000 at the event with no overhead costs, it was all to honor my older brother who passed away earlier this year. He was a Sergeant in the USMC. If there's an charity I care most about it's the WWP, mostly because it was the most important one to my older brother while he was alive.

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