Re: How Are You Helping Make This World a Better Place?
First off, with the internet, it's incredibly easy to help others, which is really cool about living in these/our times. A couple of ways I like to help:
[B][COLOR=#ee82ee]Donors Choose,[/COLOR][/B] where you choose a low-income classroom project (the teacher posts the need and what the project is about so you can choose something that interests you to help out with) and then you help the teacher fund her classroom project. I helped a teacher recently get 300 sharpies for an art project, for instance. It doesn't cost much and teachers are always so appreciative and often they have the kids write you a thank you note/card/picture to show you how it helped. (But if they don't, that's fine too.) You can help with field trips, help a class buy books, or you can match other offers of help. I like to look for a project that is just about funded and then complete their funding. You can give as little as $10 using any card or pay pal and they are so appreciative.
[URL="http://www.donorschoose.org/"]
[B][COLOR=#ee82ee]http://www.donorschoose.org/[/COLOR][/B][/URL][B][COLOR=#ee82ee]
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Another site I often use and is great if you have time to give, but no money:
[B][URL="http://www.volunteermatch.org/"][COLOR=#ee82ee]http://www.volunteermatch.org/[/COLOR][/URL][COLOR=#ee82ee]
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With this one you can help animals, the environment, the homeless, elderly, hospice, whatever area interests you, and they'll email you opportunities in your area and it can be one morning a week or something, very little time.
But by far, my favorite way to help is helping impoverished children through sponsorship.
[B][URL="https://www.childfund.org/"][COLOR=#ee82ee]https://www.childfund.org/[/COLOR][/URL][/B]which is rated one of the top charities in the world as far as accountability & such. You sign up to give automatically $28 per month (less than $1 per day) or you can buy a child a goat, a cow, a bike, or a much needed mosquito net to keep them from contracting diseases from mosquitoes, or just a flat donation. Of course, in the U.S. anything you donate is tax deductible.
But the sponsorship is the best thing because it can be interactive if you want. (You can do the minimum and not interact too.) You can also send a birthday gift (like $25-50) to your sponsored child and ours write us and thank us, tell us what they got to buy with it, etc. They use an interpreter and write letters throughout the year, including pictures, and the organization sends you notepads & stickers you can send to your sponsored child. These kids (ours) live in mud huts on dirt beds. Their fathers make $250 per year fishing or farming. You choose which country, you pick a child (boy or girl) you want to help, and it's very personal and interesting. It's also like a penpal friendship to encourage the child. But these families are incredibly sweet (and funny too) when they write. It's very humbling, my gosh, we live like royalty compared to so many. Their letters almost always bring a tear when we read them they're so lovely. I could type one out if you're interested, let me know. I got one recently and they give full names of all involved, it's very official. Sponsorship insures the child gets clean drinking water, can go to school, have school supplies, nutritional needs, etc.
Right now, in my phase of life, these are easy ways to help and in the major scheme of things, pretty effortless really. I've also helped build homes for Habitat for Humanity and that's fun & worked with other organizations, but I'm not going to list them all, seems silly and self-promoting to me even with just what I'm currently doing. Publicizing what I do or even discussing it with anyone outside of my family doesn't seem right, unless it inspires someone else to see how easy it is so they can help too. Which is why I wrote this post. I'm not affiliated with any of these sites other than I use them.
Contrary to how it must seem lately here, I'm a very private person. I do like the anonymity aspect here so it really doesn't matter who/what I am. :Smiley: