Last year I donated my BlogHer Ads earnings to Donors Choose. Any suggestions for a recipient for this year? I just read about Jewish World Watch's Solar Cooker Project in Darfur. A $30 donation provides a refugee family with solar cookers and training to use them. This helps curb deforestation and also saves women and girls from making dangerous trips to gather firewood (they risk getting raped every time they venture out). Thirty bucks!
I also want to help at home. My grocery store collects donations for our local food banks right at the checkout (the store prefills bags of supplies, I pay for it, then it goes straight the food bank). With food prices skyrocketing and everyone feeling squeezed, I remember how very lucky we are and I buy one of these bags each time I'm at the market.
The problems are so huge and diverse and intractable (how do we fix Darfur / Iraq / Afghanistan / Haiti? how do we fix health care? how do we fix crummy schools and evaporating jobs and foreclosed homes?). What I don't want to do is let this overwhelm me into inaction. One local project and one international one? That's doable. And every little bit helps.
What are you doing?
PS Don't forget FreeRice. I just donated 1000 grains and learned two new words ("vaticinate" means "prophesy" and "raddled" means "worn out").
7 comments:
Thanks for the plug!
I'm doing 2 food drives this month (at work and at preschool). But I know that for our local foodbank, a $1 cash donation buys $10 worth of food. And you can even donate online.
Good for you for helping. I've not done the rice in awhile. I'd best hie over there now. After visiting the sites you point to, natch.
Our synagogue recently joined Jewish World Watch, and it's a great organization. We had a woman come to speak to us from the solar cooker project, and she had the entire congregation in tears...even my cynical husband left saying, "The next time we donate, that's where our money is going..."
It's a good reminder with all the news about the stock market that there are many who are more worried if there's anything to eat tomorrow than whether his portfolio will improve.
Thanks for the link and for helping me to raise $110 for the Capital Area Food Bank!
That's a great cause! So important to remember those who are less fortunate. It's easy to fall into a "woe is me" pattern these days and forget about that.
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