New Year's Resolution!

Hello my lovely readers,

For those of you who celebrate this new years, Happy New Year!! It is customary for me to reflect on our lives and to sometimes make resolutions for the upcoming year. The last few weeks I have been reflecting on things, both privately and in my last few posts, which means it is time for the resolutions.

I have many resolutions for the year. I plan to apply to grad school, become more green and eco-conscious, eat less meat, get a job, get into shape, etc. None of those listed apply to the blog or my charitable life (except maybe becoming more green). Below are my resolutions that are relevant:

Resolution the first!

I am going to get back to the original idea for this blog, which was to donate a dollar a day to a charity to promote charitable giving in others and to raise awareness that every little bit of charity does matter. I wanted to help others around the world on a daily basis. I got a bit overwhelmed, as this is my first blog. I plan to try blogging everyday, instead of on occasion, which I believe will help me to be more consistent. I might even penalize myself for missing days, suggest suitable punishments below.  ;-) I am also going to make the blog a bit more organized and structured, so stay tuned for a blog post letting y'all know about the new structure and ideas.


Resolution the second!

Due to my recent move, I am not currently volunteering. And my activism is limited to online petitions and this blog (plus the occasional argument friendly debate with friends, family, and strangers about the various oppressions in our society - discussion about sexism, racism, and other ism's raise awareness and knowledge about these subjects so I consider them activism).

This is my long-winded way of saying that I want to find some local volunteer opportunities, especially since I am unemployed and have some extra free time - although, probably not as much as you believe. I shall look for something local, so I am driving as little as possible, but also for a cause I am passionate about.

Resolution the third!

This is both the most simple resolution and the hardest. It is to do my best to appreciate all that I and my family and friends have, which was mentioned in my two previous reflective posts A Christmas Reflection and Wealth: A Matter of Relativity. This has been difficult for me to do lately, as I am unable to find work. The combination of finishing college and not working is very rough emotionally. This leads to me not appreciating life as much as I could or perhaps should.



Those are my three resolutions that pertain to my blog and the mission of my blog. If you have any resolutions that you would like to share, whether they relate to charitable givings or your own life, I would love to hear them. Also, if you have any ideas for other resolutions for me, go ahead, and leave your comments below.

I wish all the best for y'all in the upcoming year.

Wealth: A Matter of Relativity

Looking around my house as we decorated and prepared for Christmas, I was constantly realizing how much wealth and comforts we have. I think as a culture we tend to underestimate how much we have and just compare ourselves to the Joneses. Our thinking is that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence so we don't take the time to appreciate what we have. And really appreciate how much we all have and how much we can afford to help others.

I know how lucky i am that I can live with my parents while I search for work, I am a recent college graduate who is struggling to find work in this economy. That is a luxury that many people just don't have, and my parents can afford this without me being a burden on them. My safety net, my family, is something which I know I am extremely lucky to have.

However, we are not rich by American standards. My parents both work, but we are not extremely rich. They own a house, but it is a fixer-upper which we are fixing up ourselves to save money. We can afford a house, but we can't afford to pay for people to do the work for us. Just so you understand where we fit in our society.

But as we know, on a global scale we are extremely, extremely wealthy. According to Global Rich List, I am in the top 12 percent of the world's richest people. And this is with me only working part time retail positions while attending university. I am not working full time and make less than $10 an hour in retail....

"RICHER THAN YOU THINK?
How do you feel about that? A bit richer we hope. Richer and ready to give some of your newly found wealth to those who need it most. It not hard - just slip your hand in your pocket and pull out something special. Something that can help redress the balance - and also make you feel uncommonly good. Many peoples lives could be happier if you donated just one hour's salary (approx $9.83 - UK estimate).
All you have to do is make a choice.
$8 could buy you 15 organic apples OR 25 fruit trees for farmers in Honduras to grow and sell fruit at their local market.
$30 could buy you an ER DVD Boxset OR a First Aid kit for a village in Haiti.
$73 could buy you a new mobile phone OR a new mobile health clinic to care for AIDS orphans in Uganda.
$2400 could buy you a second generation High Definition TV OR schooling for an entire generation of school children in an Angolan village."

So I guess its a question of what we want to do without wealth. Do we want to spend it on presents and more stuff for our houses? 

Or do we want to get together and recognize what we do or do we want to use our wealth, and if you are in a developed country you are extremely wealthy on a global scale, to create the change we want to see in the world (Gandhi paraphrased)?


Personally, I think I want to try my best to be the change I want to see in the world...


I would love it if you would join me in this.

A Christmas reflection...

Hello and happy holidays to everyone,

Throughout this holiday season I have been reflecting on wealth and the value of presents. I am currently unemployed, so I used fabric scraps, yarn I already had, and supplies from thrift stores to make presents for people, I also made jelly from my parents fruit tree's to give out. I also purchased Christmas cards from a thrift store; fifty cents for a package of twenty. All in all, I sent out Christmas cards to 15 people and made presents for another 15 or so and spent under twenty dollars. It was very satisfying to figure out presents for everyone that I care about without spending money that I just can't afford to spend.

But the societal pressures of the holiday here in the United States still made me feel as if I needed to go to the store and buy brand new fancy presents for everyone. The commercialization of the various holidays has created a system in which we must go out and shop for our family and friends to prove that we care about them. Consider for instance, jewelry commercial's imply that the only appropriat way to show love for a significant other is through the purchasing of diamond and gold.

My homemade jelly, which I made from fruit trees in my parents backyard, seems to me to be a better and more personal gift than a CD. But as I was giving them out I continually felt a bit inadequate. As if my time was not as a good a present as a present bought with my money would be. Which is ironic because I spent more time making gifts than I would have had to spend earning money to buy Christmas gifts.

And then as we got closer to Christmas, I was surprised - as I am every year - by the sheer number of presents under our tree. By U.S. standards, we are not a rich family. We cannot afford vacations in far off distance lands, we do not have multiple houses, nor could I afford college without taking more loans than I would have liked. So in that regard we are not well off, on the other hand we have multiple boxes of Christmas ornaments to choose from and we can afford a nice tree and presents for our family and friends (excepting my handmade presents).

After Christmas people often ask what you got? They do not ask what you did or who you spent your holiday celebrations with. Because the apparent meaning of Christmas is getting presents, not about spending time with family... I mean, opening presents is wonderful and I truly enjoy it, I think everyone does honestly. But sometimes instead of another necklace, I think it would be nice to know that money did something beyond purchasing me more jewelry that was made in China, or the equivalent, by an underpaid and mistreated worker.

Sometimes, I look at presents and think about the person who made it and what their life must be like. I wonder if they could afford something like that for themselves or their family for their own celebrations. I imagine their closet, which is likely much smaller than my own. I watched a documentary on the Tuva in an anthropology class a few years back and a daughter was visiting her family for a two week holiday, she brought with her a small shopping bag. A shopping bag held all she needed for two weeks. Her luggage was smaller than my bag of Christmas presents.

I just have been thinking of all that I have even while I am an unemployed recent college graduate and am very grateful for all that I have, so I need to remember that on a daily basis.

And I hope my reflections have made you think as well...

Great NYT article on giving...

Hey all,

I just read a great article the other day and thought I would share it with y'all . Its called "The Gifts of Hope" by Nicholas D. Kristof. And I thought it was a great little rundown on some amazing charities that I haven't heard of before but wish I had so I could have been supporting them...

The author asks "So what would your aunt prefer as a holiday gift — another Mariah Carey CD, or the knowledge that she’s sending a little girl in Haiti to school for a year?" And unless your aunt was in financial trouble and needed more material help or other types of support, I think many people would love being given a gift that positively impacts other lives as these organizations do.

One of the charities is Partners in Health which has done and is continuing to do amazing work in Haiti, so always a good choice to support. My favorite on his list is the Panzi Hospital which "treats victims of sexual violence in eastern Congo, rape capital of the world. It’s run by Dr. Denis Mukwege, who should be a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. A $10 donation pays for transport to the hospital for a rape survivor; $100 pays for counseling and literacy and skill training for a survivor for a month"

However, I was also very interested in The Somaly Mam Foundation, which fight sex trafficking and slavery, and the Edna Hospital, a maternity hospital in Somalia which has the highest rates of maternal mortality. All three of these wonderful charities are something that I will make a point of supporting in the upcoming year and I hope you will to. Or donate to them for someones Christmas or Kwanzaa gift, I know I would love that personally.... :-)

Have a great holiday season with family or friends and always remember we can all afford to help others through time of money...

Do you use Google Chrome?

If you do, then you need to download Chrome for a Cause add-on. For a short time, Dec 15 to Dec 19, google is going to donate to a few different charities based on your Internet usage. The five different charities are The Nature Conservancy, charity: water, Doctors Without Borders, Un Techo para mi Pais, and Room to Read. Which are all wonderful organizations, if you aren't familiar with them you should read more about them. Every day you get to decide who to donate to out of the five and I have to say, it would be really hard for me to choose one, but thankfully you can do it everyday as you surf the Internet.

Unfortunately, my comp is one version too old for me to be able to use Chrome... So I cannot do this, which means you have to do it for me. So download Chrome and go about your daily life as usual while getting Google to donate to wonderful charities. It takes absolutely no extra effort on your part, except for the tough choice of who to donate to, I say choose a different one every day, cycle through them all.

According to a TechCrunch article here is "how much you have to browse to donate to the various charities: 10 tabs = 1 tree planted, 10 tabs = 1 book published and donated, 25 tabs = 1 vaccination treatment provided, 100 tabs = 1 square foot of shelter built, 200 tabs = 1 person’s clean water for a year." So like the article says "just browse the web, and donate to charity."

So here is the add-on go and download it now!

Save Darfur Store.

Today I want to talk about an issue which has yet to come up on the blog and that is the devastating war, genocide, and human rights violations occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan. This is one of the areas on the globe where life is extremely difficult and as many as hundreds of thousands have been affected by the strife.

There is no simple way to explain the current situation in Darfur quickly, for more info here is the wikipedia article on the Darfur conflict and some background from Save Darfur on the crisis. Here I learned about this conflict many years ago when I started learning about human trafficking and modern day slavery. The United Human Rights council considers it a genocide, which is a monumental accusation but one that many agree with. The president has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and for "directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and pillage against civilians in Darfur."

Basically this is a region in extreme upheaval that is very dangerous for those who live their. And helping support those working for them would be a wonderful Christmas present to those affected by this war. One way of this is just through donating to Save Darfur and other organization that do this kind of work.

Another way is to purchase some of your Christmas present through their store. I think I want to purchase the decal that says "Stop the Genocide," because it is important for me to that people use that word and acknowledge the reality of the desperate situation of the people in Sudan.

So think about buy merchandise for people as another way to support your favorite charities while doing your Christmas shopping. Have a wonderful day everyone and remember all the good things in your life.

Work Gift Exchanges

One of our readers shared a way in which they donated to charity with absolutely no effort on there part. I thought I would share it with y'all.

Many offices and workplaces do some sort of a gift exchange. When it happens at your work and people are wondering what is on your wish list, just ask them to donate to your favorite charity in your name. this is a great way to avoid that extra chocolate or sweets that pile up around the holidays and impact a great cause at the same time. And you can choose whatever charity is your favorite; whether you are passionate about human rights, food justice, HIV/AIDS care, access to safe water, women's rights, or any other cause.

The reader who sent me this story asked for her coworker to donate to Heifer International. I've written about them before, they are a great organization in which you "purchase" animals which are donated to families globally which gives those families a livelihood instead of just aid. They really are an amazing organizations which focus on helping entire communities to become self-sufficient. I have loved their work for years.

For twenty dollars you can purchase a flock of chicks, ducks or geese for a family. And $120 purchases a Christmas Basket that will "renew hope and start fresh for a family in need when you give a Christmas Basket. Sheep provide valuable wool and are a vital source of income in impoverished communities. Wool can provide warmth in chilly temperatures and can be sold at market for additional income." And all families that receive a Heifer gift pass on some of their offspring to their community, so a single purchase becomes part of a cycle helping more and more families. 


So choose your favorite charity and know that your Christmas gifts is helping to impact lives.