Charity

http://www.childsplaycharity.org/
http://www.powells.com/schoolbook/

I don't want anybody to get me wrong...I'm not an altruistic person by nature. I don't walk around wondering how I can better my world or humanity in general, but I have been thinking lately about how I could donate to charity more.

When people call or knock at my door to solicit money for charity, I usually give nothing, or maybe a token donation. Not because I don't want to give, but I have reasons for not doing so.

First of all, I'm mistrustful of charities and how much of their collected donations go for administration costs. I've heard the figure is sometimes upwards of 80%, which, if true, is just sickening. Even if it's closer to 20-30%, it still seems pretty high.

Secondly, I've been thinking over the past couple years that it's probably not a bad idea to donate to charities or organizations that I support, and go to them, instead of half-heartedly giving to those that come to me.

That's why I love this Child's Play charity. It was started by two guys in Seattle who run the Penny Arcade website. It's an online comic-strip dealing with video games and nerds. I don't even read the comic strip very often, but I heard about their charity a couple years ago and it sounded like something I could get behind.

Basically, they set up wish-lists on Amazon.com. Each wish-list is for a different children's hospital around the USA and the World. You pick a hospital you want to donate to and buy an item directly from the wish-list and Amazon sends it right to the hospital. Most the items are video-game related, but some are children's books, little toys, all different things to help the sick kids that are stuck in the hospital. You can also donate money directly to the charity, but the Amazon thing is cool because you know exactly what they'll be receiving from you.

Last year, when my daughter was small, she had a little musical mobile on her crib that played music and flashes a little light show onto the ceiling. It was often the only thing that would help get her to sleep at night. In fact, she still uses it each night to fall asleep to. So that's what I bought for the Seattle Children's Hospital. I liked thinking of it being used to help a little sick child to fall asleep and maybe feel better just for a little bit. This year I wanted to donate some video games and books.

The cool thing is that there are no administrative fees. All the money and items go directly to the hospitals. These guys set up this charity to combat the idea that video games make kids into little murderers and are a total waste of time and it's definitely proving something in that over the past 3 years they've donated well over a million dollars to these hospitals. That's something I'm proud to give my money to.

The other thing I got involved in this year is a drive by Powell's Bookstore here in Portland to put 50,000 new books in Portland's schools. It's an easy one to contribute to and the premise is simple. You buy a book donation for $5.95, and Powell's donates 10 more books to the schools. So a $6.00 donation buys 11 books for schools, $12.00 buys 22, and so on. What can be easier?

I don't know that it makes up for my bad qualities, but I like the feeling I get from giving to these worthwhile charities much more than writing that stupid $10.00 check because the local police officer's association guy on the phone guilted me into helping them take some kids to the local circus. You get the feeling that if you say no then the police are going to come harass you for not giving, and you end up feeling like the only clown is you.

That's my positive post for the next year.