Apologies if anyone else has posted this… I didn’t believe it could be true until I also heard about it on NPR.
The United Nations World Food Program has a site that gives you a chance to offer a FREE MEAL to someone who is starving in some part of the world. All you have to do is go to their site and click a button – the meal is then paid for by corporate sponsors whose banners are displayed on that site. You can click ONLY ONCE A DAY. Please check it out. You can save someone from starvation every day by just one click and no cost to you.
This thread needs to go back up to the top of the page.
The wife and I have been clicking the little hunger button for the past couple of months. Every click nets a hungry person somewhere in the world between 2 and 3 1/4 cups of food depending on the number of sponsers for that day.
Sorry Cabbage, I don’t know, but I’m doing it the way Melin is - once from my work computer and once from my home computer. It might not be completely “honest” but who’s it hurting?
It’s an awesome idea, isn’t it? It’s a wonder no one thought of it before. I’ve been clicking from home and work ever since I heard about it a few weeks ago. I also put a link to it on my home page. A good way not to forget to go there and click is to make it your browser’s start page.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to
improve the world.” - Anne Frank
Every webpage logs your IP address (i.e. your computer’s location on the internet, a number assigned by your ISP) If they see the same IP following the same link twice, they can choose to ignore the second click with they tally up the food at the end of the day.
However, if you have a regular dial-up ISP, chances are your IP number is dynamic and changes every time you connect to the internet. Those with cable modems and DSL tend to have static IP’s. They never change.
So just click the food button, disconnect, reconnect click again, etc (but make sure to your heart’s content if you wish. I’m on cable, so I can’t.
Oh and they’re up to 3 1/2 cups of rice per click now. Pretty cool.
Sounds suspiciously like a crock to me. Even if it ain’t, any additional cost of providing food is eventually going to be passed on to the customers of the sponsoring corporations. The board of directors isn’t going to take a hit in their benefit packages because you and Sally Struthers felt guilty while munching your twinkies.
/Which leads to/ If you want to give money, then give it. Your own money, that you yourself worked for. Clicking because you think that you’re giving away somebody else’s money greatly undermines the concern for fellow man you seem to wish to be demonstrating. /Alternately,/
If you want to be a part of the solution, find a way to send firearms and ammo. Usually the one thing that is taken from poor people first and that they end up needing the most, is the thing least likely to be furnished to them by “humanitarian” agencies. That starvation exists today is due to social or political reasons; it’s not a question of supply and demand. - MC
I respectfully disagree. Have you visited their website? If so, have you read the link about why their sponsors are doing this? I’m guessing you haven’t, or you wouldn’t have made the above statement.
While there is a possibility some of the monies spent advertising on The Hunger Site will be written off as charitable contributions, it’s something that most companies allow for in their annual budgets anyway. But my guess is that the bulk of the dollars spent on advertising there come from an already existing advertising budget. These are businesses who advertise elsewhere, including other internet sites.
These companies pay 1/2 cent US each time their ad is viewed on The Hunger Site. I admit I haven’t researched this, but I doubt that’s any higher than they’d pay any other site if they had a banner ad on any other page either.
Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is about visiting a website that uses the money they “earn” from advertisers to benefit a worthy cause. I’m certainly not doing it because I feel guilty about eating twinkies, and I doubt anyone else is either. Do you complain that advertisers on the SD pages will have to dip into their employees’ pension funds because we’re excessively clicking on these pages and they’re having to pay so much out in advertising expenses?
If you’re terribly concerned that these companies are paying something out and getting nothing in return, do them a favor; click on their ads and visit their pages. Then they earn money because their sponsors pay them when their ads are seen. Or better yet, buy something from them or take advantage of whatever free service they’re offering (what’s so hard about using Bluemountain Arts to send your e-greeting cards?).
With that statement I do agree. Feeding starving people isn’t the only thing that needs to be done to ensure that fewer people die from hunger in impoverished nations. Change needs to occur at government levels as well. However, that doesn’t mean that we should just let people starve to death when we have the ability to feed them.
I’m sure there are organizations out there that deal with the political issues in these countries, and if you’re concerned about that I suggest you volunteer your time with one of them. I volunteer my time and efforts with Corazon, a non-profit organization that builds homes and provides educational opportunities in poverty-stricken areas of Mexico. I go to small villages in and around Tijuana and build houses several times a year. I also help edit their newsletter, and just took on the position of assistant webmistress for their website (www.corazon.org) because it needs a lot of work. I do all of this because I know that I’m helping change lives, even if I can’t do anything to change the Mexican government! And I click at The Hunger Site for the same reason, thankyouverymuch - not out of some sense of guilt.
Now will someone please pass me a twinkie?
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
Wow! This is the ultimate way for selfish, lazy middle-income folk to feel good about themselves and brag about how charitable and full of good will they are.
I mean, why bother to actually help out at one of those dirty soup kitchens or out of the way elderly care facilities - when all you have to do is lift one finger and BLAMO!. . .you’re a bona-fide saint!
Wake up people. . .there’s a reason the executives of the UN Food Program drive Mercedes.
For the last four years, I’ve helped out a local shelters and soup kitchens over the holidays. I always put a new toy in the Toys For Tots barrel. I throw some change in just about every Salvation Army bucket I pass. I raided my closets for blankets and clothes to donate for recent earthquake victims.
What the **** do YOU do besides gripe and complain about me? You don’t know the first freakin’ thing about me or how I extend myself for others.
Thank you for the personal insult. I am neither selfish nor lazy. Clearly you did not read my above reply. I get my hands plenty dirty with the volunteer work that I do. I’ve never been on a house build yet where any grass existed. It’d be pretty hard to stay clean when digging foundations in nothing but dirt, clay and rocks.
And I do “bother to actually help out at one of those dirty soup kitchens” also. Where were you while I was at the Sunrise Mission serving Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless?
Which begs another question. If someone hadn’t donated the money to buy the food I was serving, what good would it have done for me to stand there with a ladle in my hand??? Just because I can’t be in Ethiopia personally “getting my hands dirty,” doesn’t mean that my contribution in ensuring there is money to pay for the food by visiting The Hunger Site is any less important.
Have a nice day.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
Story: I’m not sure if this was directed at MC or me, but if it’s directed at little 'ol me, I don’t recall ever griping about you. I very well might have disagreed with one of your postings in the past but please don’t take it so personally. Saints really shouldn’t call people “a-hole” BTW.
Shayna: “personal insult”? Just because my posting chronologically followed yours does NOT mean that it was directed at you.
I have worked for two charitable organizations and can assure you that the majority of them are corrupt and great sums of donated money ends up in the wrong hands. It either happens overtly or in a roundabout, hidden fashion - but it does happen all the time.
You ask about how the soup kitchens can possibly get the money for the soup if no one donates money. Well, a local soup kitchen here gets there soup, bread, coffee, etc. donated by supermarkets and food drives. In almost all cases you can avoid the middleman and donate the actual product or service. There is less room for corruption that way.
Of course, neither of you ladies wish to address the fact that the Charity Industry is big business.
From both of your postings I see that both of you care and actively help out the impoverished - that’s comendable. I must tell you, StoryTyler, that your confrontational attitude and adversarial tone is at odds with your charitable actions. And I think Shayna can spell just fine: “Have a nice day” is far more mature and appropriate than “Bite me”.
According to snopes its true…thats good enough for me.
As someone else said it is paid for by advertisers!
and Sake, Yah its easy and I don’t do any other charity work. But it doesn’t make the food taste any worse does it? or make it any less nutrititous? If it does then i am a bastard. If not, you are bastard!
-Frankie
I’m not a shrimp, I’m a King Prawn.
-Pepe the Prawn
You are correct, Saki. The location or chronology of the replies is not the indicator of whether an insult was made. Your remarks, regardless of where they appeared in this thread, were directed to anyone and everyone who clicks the donate food button at the hunger site. Since I’m one of those people, I feel I correctly took your comments personally. If you did not intend to insult everyone, perhaps you should consider alternate ways of expressing yourself to be more clear.
And just who do you think covers the cost of the food that’s donated by the supermarkets? And as far as I can see from having read The Hunger Site in its entirety, it’s nothing more and nothing less than a “food drive,” which you acknowledge is an acceptable source in your above comment.
And why should we? Was that what this thread was about and I just misread it? Ok, you want to go there, fine, I’ll go there. It’s sad and disheartening to me that you’ve clearly had bad experiences with the charities for whom you’ve volunteered, and that those experiences have left you bitter towards all charities in general. While admittedly there are those that are corrupt, I would beg to differ that the number of them that are, exceeds the number that aren’t (“majority”).
For instance, Corazon is what is truly considered a not-for-profit organization. There is not one single person, from the Chairman of the Board all the way down to the workers in the warehouse, who recieve one penny in the way of salary or compensation. Every single position is 100% voluntary and every penny collected goes towards the running of the operations and programs and services we provide. We give our time, energy, expertise and labor, and what we get in return is far more valuable than the almighty greenback.
I would strongly suggest, if you want to do charity work but are concerned about corruption, that you do some research and find out what organizations in your area are truly not-for-profit and are 100% volunteer. If you don’t know where to start, check out volunteermatch.com. Plug in your zip code, select from their options about whether you’re looking for on-going or one time volunteer opportunities, etc, and then once you get the list, check into which organizations are strictly volunteer.
And while you’re at it, quit being a stick in the mud and go click that button at The Hunger Site! What the heck will it hurt you to do so? Even if only half the money ends up as food in the mouth of a starving baby, you will have done your good deed for the day.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
Since I’m the one who started the thread, and you wrote the above, I have no choice but to assume you’re talking to me and everyone else who (according to you) thinks the best way to assuage our “selfish lazy middle-income” guilt is to click a button, and that we only do it so we can brag afterward about our good charitable works. You show great contempt for people like me (who click on buttons to help feed others). You made it abundantly clear that folks like me (who click on buttons to help feed others), are lazy-ass snobs who wouldn’t DARE get our hands dirty helping those less fortunate, but will gladly take credit for “feeding others” by clicking a button. You really suck, you know that?
I’m not a saint, don’t consider myself a saint, never implied that I was a saint. That’s another one of your outrageous generalizations. As a point of fact, I’m the first to admit I’m about as far from sainthood as you can get. I’m simply someone who’s doing ok, who enjoys doing a little something for others who aren’t as well off. I also happen to be someone who gets really pissed off at idjits who make sweeping generalizations directed at folks they haven’t the first clue about.
I must tell you, Mr. Sake, that your insulting generalizations only serve to underline your unthinking, uncharitable, crappy attitude toward complete strangers. Additionally, I don’t desire or require your approval for anything, but when you start with the “selfish, lazy middle-income” guilt/bragging crap, don’t expect me (or anyone else) to roll over and take it.
But don’t worry Mr. Sake, I’ll click twice for you, so you can assuage your own selfish, lazy, middle-income guilt too.