I don’t do much charitable work on a grander scale. I prefer helping out my friends when they need it. Start small and local sez I. I used to do some editing on Project Gutenberg, like Nava, but starting college ended that for now. The most charitable thing I’m doing right now is voting for an animal shelter one of my friends works at to help them win a $25K grant. Here’s the link.
Other than that, I guess you can say that Reference Work is all about helping people but there are days I don’t feel very charitable about it.
My time and money have gone to various groups over the years. While in college I volunteered on campus organizations that counseled peopled on understanding and choosing birth control as well as other aspects of human sexuality. We ran a question line, went with women to their first Gyn appointments and even escorted women to abortion clinics, if necessary. We sold many types of birth control, talked to the freshman in their dorms about STDs and did couples counseling.
I have always been an active financial contributor to the ACLU and NOW and NARAL. NPR gets my money too. However, my time is now spent closer to home, serving on community boards through the local hospital, my synagogue and my children’s school. I was a Girl Scout leader for a few years until my daughter chose not to re-up.
I’m doing as much now as I have in the past- since going back to work full time. I have always wondered what “hobby” will fill my time after I retire and I finally concluded that it will be traveling and working for community and charitable organizations. I really enjoy that type of work.
Great OP, mousie - I give more money than time to charities but I’m choosy about what charities I donate to. For various reasons, I rarely give to “people” charities and I make a point of not supporting charities that participate in vivisection. I do, however, give up one night of the year for a sponsored sleep-out in aid of a local charity that provides shelter for the homeless as I know they are a good cause and do good work.
Recently I’ve given money to the Macmillan Nurses charity and to a local cat shelter, as well as sponsoring friends for their charitable activities. My friends and I used to take part in a local radio station’s charity “Run for Home” event which I’ve posted about before, which raises money for parent and toddler schemes in our local area although most of the money raised goes towards providing equipment for the neo-natal unit in the hospital. Most of the fun there is the things we can do to raise money (cake sales, the butty pull and things like that) and the fun we have doing “Run for Home” itself.
One thing I’d like to do is volunteer for a medical missionary trip somewhere. When I finish upgrading my EMT certification, I can start IVs, intubate, and the like, and I think going to the jungles of Lower Scrotum and fixing indigent kid’s harelips would be a blast.
I tried my first IV on a live human this weekend. Missed the vein. My partner tried it on me. He hit the vein, then started digging and blew it. Ouch.
I forgot the obligatory blurf[sup]Monday[/sup]. Sue me.
Since nobody else has said anything yet,
Happy Birthday, LiLi.
We give a little to lots of charities. At Christmastime I like to buy Gift cards from McDonald’s and the like to give to the homeless beggar types on the streetcorners.
This coming weekend, my company is sponsoring a charitable event called Recipe for Success that I’ve volunteered my time for. We’re going to an elementary school and helping build an elevated vegetable garden, as well as a tool shed. It’ll be fun, I think, and I might continue to supprt this program. They teach kids about food from “seed to plate,” meaning how to grow it and cook it, using real chefs from real restaurants in the area! It means a lot to this wannabe foodie.
LMAO!! Thanks for the appreciation, not trying to have cleavage in those pics…
Happy Birthday Lilly!!
It’s neat hearing what everyone else has done. I know that charity work is such a small part of our lives (well, except for Bobbio) because of time, money and other constraints. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you! My back really hurts (25 pound non-walking child) and I feel ancient and venerable. :dodges flung objects:
I’m working (probably one of my last shifts) with Useless Coworker tonight. Yay. We’re going out for dinner with my parents on Wednesday, and maybe with QD and Driving Husband and Attacks Husband and his wife on Friday. Should be a nice week.
I went back to the underwear sale and now I have fifteen new pairs of underwear. This is ridiculous. I will not run out until I’m forty-five. Or seventy. It’s all very fun and pretty and brightly coloured, and no, no pics. Pthibbit.
Oh, something else that slipped through the cracks this morning. All of you who have diets that don’t include pork need not read any further…
I did a pork butt in the slow cooker yesterday, and I did two things different. First, I put a bottle of beer in the bottom of the cooker, so the roast steamed instead of roasted. Second, I use a bare-bones vinegar sauce that has red and black pepper and brown sugar; I added a half tablespoon of ground mustard, too.
YUM!
I’ll post revised recipe(s) later, probably tomorrow, if anyone is interested.
Hippo Birdie, LiLi!!!
Welcome to old age. Having a whopping three months of experience with it thus far, I can assure you that it’s really not as bad as it seems. Honest. Sorry Nat’s been having a rough time with your return to work.
mousie, as it happens, breast cancer has been my charity of choice for a few years now. I’ve been lucky in that it hasn’t touched my life directly, though among my friends and family there are some connections to survivors (including my mom’s best friend from university, who was diagnosed five years ago). I’d donated in various ways in the past, but for the past two years I’ve participated in the 60K Weekend to End Breast Cancer walk, and raised $2000 each year for the cause.
I decided not to go for year three, since breast cancer is probably one of the best funded causes nowadays, and there are other charities that could probably use my support a whole lot more… I’m thinking MS, most likely, as I have a couple of friends who have been struggling with the disease.
Also, I like the new haircut. It’s very flattering.
Vundie, you’re a saint. I sometimes wish I’d taken a year or two before going to uni to donate some time in the third world… somewhere where you can quite literally see the difference your efforts are making.
Very cute haircut mousie. Is the transition from long to short being easy for you? Even when I donated to Locks of Love I still had waist length hair. In the past when I have gone crazy and had it all whacked off I had a hard time with it, and I couldn’t get it grown back out fast enough.
lunch you are always a step ahead of me with the teasing, the link was cute, and new to me. Thanks for the smile.
Farmer Bob does the toad get to keep his sand castle?
