Giving back
 

As I complete my charitable gift-giving for the year, I though I'd share some of my favorite charities with you and hope that others will chime in with their favorites.

One of the things I do when I get home from my major Asia trip each year is to choose a charity to help in the country I just visited. This year, we were in Nepal, and I chose an economic development project run by Heifer www.heifer.org Heifer always has it's programs of giving livestock of various sorts, but it also has special economic development project you can choose to support.

Other charities I support regularly are

The Ponheary Ly Foundation www.theplf.org

Mercy Corps, which does disaster relief www.mercycorps.org

I'd be interested in other people's favorites.

A long time favorite of mine is Medecins Sans Frontieres at msf.org in addition to the PLF and the Leukemia/Lymphoma foundation(leukemia.org).

mine are american forests, national ms society & local needy families. i've given more to the local food pantry as well.

Nice thread Kathie.

In addition to my obvious favorite charity, :) I like the kiva organization, which is more of a loan than a gift. I like the model and the results they get.

www.kiva.org

Also a big fan of the heifer project.

Hi, Lori, I've read about Kiva and book marked it for future exploration.

moremiles, Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders is an excellent organization.

Kathie -- thanks for a very thougthful thread. I donate to the local Food Bank, and help organize the local firefighters annual Toy Drive. One Warm Coat is also a favorite, and Doctors Without Borders.

plf.org of course!
Kiva, too
Habitat for Humanity. You can designate which country.
Red Cross. Many people I know who've been through disasters (US and abroad) have said Red Cross got there first with the most useful help.


heard about heifer, but have yet looked into it. It sounds like one I'd like.

I guess a lot of us are on the same page here. I like the following as well:
www.theplf.org
www.heifer.org
www.kiva.org

This year I also donated to the American Cancer Foundation (a coworker was doing a Breast Cancer walk), the Point Foundation (a donation in lieu of gift for friends who got married here in CA before Nov. 4th -http://thepointfoundation.org/index.html- an organization which provides college scholorships to LGBT young people) and LA Outfest (www.outfest.org for same friend who got married is on their board of directors).

I recently saw a segement on CNN about a teenage boy who was raising money to buy cooking stoves for displaced women in Darfur.
www.stovesfordarfur.com and www.chfinternational.org
The stoves use 75% less fuel than a traditional fire and keep women from having to travel up to 7 hours a day in search of firewood, exposing them to attack and preventing them from caring for their families. The stoves cost $30 each. I have not donated, but it certainly looks interesting.

My favorite charity is a little boy in Varanasi with a nice clean school uniform and a satchel with books and pencils who now goes to school and can count fluently all the way up to ten.

lcuy, I hadn't thought of Habitat for Humanity as an international charity, but of course it is. I give to my local Habit, but next time around perhaps I'll donate to both the local and an international location.

dogster - those kinds of charitable acts are priceless! (This is what The PLF does in Cambodia.)

Kristina, thanks for some more ideas for international charities. The stoves for Dafur looks very interesting.

I've been lurking on this one for a while...

Obviously, www.theplf.org

But anyone that is a professional (loose definition) should join Rotary as it's international efforts are unparalleled.

www.rotary.org

Contributions should go to the 501(c)3 Rotary Foundation.

Among other things, the Foundation is working to eradicate polio worldwide. We are almost there. The Bill Gates Foundation is assisting in these efforts. There are many, many other international projects that you can read about on the Rotary web site. Rotarians all over the world are actively involved in these projects as part of their travels.

Prior to each school year I take up a collection from my local club for the PLF. The club has been very generous. With Lori's help, I always try to give them a detailed report on the PLF's progress.

We do things local and take supplies to the local temple to distribute to those in need.

Although in Thailand elderly in most cases stay with families there are those who through circumstances do not have any family, and there are places where they stay together. A nice thing here is you arrange a great special meal for them and take it to where they stay and you also serve the food, great thing to do as a family. Often do on our birthdays.
Plus we take food to the temples where they care for dogs.

Kathie - I saw on TV about that project where they give livestock to people, goats provides milk etc, very good idea.

Medecins Sans Frontieres do excellent work

One of my favorites is:
www.sos-childrensvillages.org

(Don't know why this didn't come up as a link).

They have "children's villages" all over the world for orphaned and abandoned children who live in family groupings. We visited one in Luang Prabang & one in Jaipur, and contribute to the one in Jaipur, where we also sponsor a little girl.

Thought that this post had some good ideas so I'm pushing it back up to the top.