Almost every company I have worked for has had a special charity or organization that they support. Most of us have our own special charities that we support in some fashion. One I supported for a long time tried to help children with medical conditions that had no where else to turn to. Some people I knew referred to what they did as experimental surgery, but when all other avenues are exhausted, medical care from the edge becomes someone’s only possibility no matter how experimental it may be.
I would donate some money to this charity every year at tax refund time, or more often if I could afford it. One day my mind was wandering, and I was thinking about the money I gave to my special charity. I was feeling pretty good about it when the idea occurred to me that I was not even covering the cost of some doctor’s bathroom break at the hospital they worked at!
I knew that my thoughts were noble, but in reality, what I gave to that charity was so little, it probably barely paid for the paper it was tracked on. From there I went to donating money to a local church. That seemed pretty fitting. Give money to a church, and they distribute that money out to those in need.
I am in church one morning listening to the priest talk about going to a city one hundred miles away for some shopping, a steak dinner, and a movie. At this point in my life, I had maybe five dollars free for my whole weekend entertainment. I did some quick calculating in my head, and I determined that it would take a few months of my donations to pay for one trip such as the priest was talking about. I thought about the last of a four day old casserole I had eaten for dinner last night, and somehow my dinner and his did not balance out.
I was trying hard to make an impact, and do the right thing, but it was obvious I was not in even close to the middle of the income level of this church, and it was doubtful my few dollars a Sunday were doing anything for anyone really.
About this time, I started doing volunteer work, and that was gratifying at times. The only problem was it was hard to fit my free time into a groups need. So volunteering became sporadic at best. I found a homeless shelter that needed money and food, and that was pretty rewarding for a few years. I could see I was making a direct impact on peoples lives right where I live, and that made me happy.
A group of gay men and women who wanted to do something charitable for their community started doing car washes, bake sales, and other fund raisers to raise money. When they raised over ten-thousand dollars, they tried to give it away to the homeless shelter I was supporting with my few dollars every few weeks. A funny thing happened though, the founder of the shelter refused the money! He claimed that as a Christian he could not accept money from those people…. I wrote him and told him the money I gave him came from playing poker, and I won my money in part from drug dealers, gang bangers, pimps, and addicts. Certainly my money was no better than the money he refused. I ended making it clear, that my money would be going somewhere else. Thankfully, so did about half of the charitable donators also agree with me, and gave their money elsewhere.
Now I give to a charity that spends the money right where I live, helping people in my city and state, and I feel good about that. I know that my money is going to things I can see, appreciate, and hopefully those being helped do too. I do not my time often as I found in general, donating my time was more painful than it was rewarding which is too bad, I wish it were not so.
If you have little or no money and want to do something, look around your neighborhood. If you pay attention, you will find someone or some group needs your help. If you donate to a charity, make sure it is one that makes you feel good, not just a charity that makes feel like you are fulfilling an obligation.
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