Showing posts with label Charity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charity. Show all posts
Saturday, March 22, 2008
One Hundred and Twenty-eight, The Beauty of Rest
This morning I helped with the physical conundrums of throwing a fundraising 5k run/walk. I had to be there at six in the morn...Yeah, it was tough. The adrenaline from being standing kept most of us going strong but towards the end, it began hitting a lot of us. Not that we looked like sleeping idiots during it, but we could tell our energies were flagging more than they should. Over lunch Amish Girl was getting sleepy-eyed and when I returned during Warcraft, my head would nod off. So I headed off to bed promptly fell asleep for four hours. I'm curious how this will mess with my sleeping schedule, if at all. We'll see!
Friday, January 11, 2008
Seventy-seven, Seven!
Tonight I helped my classmates throw a silent charity auction. I put down two bids; both were for seven bucks and my bid number was seventy-seven. Coincidence? I think not! (Actually, I did sneak out the registration card for number 77 and fill it out for me beforehand [evil cackling]) In the end I won two tickets to the Science Centre! HUZZAH! I'm excited! It's been ages since I went there (March 2000) Probably I've built it up to be more than it actually is but I can't deny that science centres entrance me. Last time I was there they had an erosion table with running water and sand that was mold-able. I think I bored dad by staying at that one location for most of the time we were there :) What can you say, I was a tiny 17!
By the way, the fact that I'm posting means I survived the cooking of the potatoes mentioned last entry. Yeah...they weren't good. I didn't get them properly cooked through and through but the seasoning was decent. Small steps, right?
Happy January 11th everyone!
By the way, the fact that I'm posting means I survived the cooking of the potatoes mentioned last entry. Yeah...they weren't good. I didn't get them properly cooked through and through but the seasoning was decent. Small steps, right?
Happy January 11th everyone!
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Thirty-nine, Compassion Overload
In my lifetime, many times have I been approached on streets by barely dressed 4 and 5 year-olds asking for money. Mothers holding babies begging for a few cents. In all these years I have never given them anything. Yet yesterday I gave some money to, not an individual or two, but an organization that specializes in feeding and caring for kids around the world. How can I condone giving to an organization and not an individual? For me, it has always been easy. I don't believe that anything going wrong can be fixed simply by throwing money at it. Rather, money works better if it's decided how to spend it first so instead of showering the destitute with colored paper with deceased people's portraits on them, it is used to pay for the creation of homes, for the purchase of foodstuffs and medicines, and hopefully on education for everyone--especially the children.
I don't deny that there are barely dressed children running around in American streets. But I guarantee that the number in this country is much lower than in most developing nations. The question then crops up: Do I support a National initiative to help people or a World-wide one? And this is where your individual ideals come into play. For me, the whole has always been very important to me. In classes, the learning occurs at the pace of the slowest learner to make sure no one gets left behind. Granted, this has changed in the past year and a half with the advent of Medical School but overall, the idea remains.
The Numbers. Percentage-wise, the US and India aren't at opposite ends of the scale in their poverty numbers: 12% and 27.5% respectively. But when I take into account the population, the US has ~36.4 million people under the poverty line while India has 321.5 million under the poverty line. For comparison, the total population of the United states is just over 300 million strong. This makes it harder for me to spend on people and organizations that service just the United States.
I do hope I have the nerve to offer up my services to groups like Doctors without Borders or go and provide free clinic care annually to areas that receive no care usually unless they travel hundreds of miles to the nearest hospitals which are too expensive for them and have overcrowding issues. That would be the best thing that I could accomplish to serve my fellow suffering human beings.
I don't deny that there are barely dressed children running around in American streets. But I guarantee that the number in this country is much lower than in most developing nations. The question then crops up: Do I support a National initiative to help people or a World-wide one? And this is where your individual ideals come into play. For me, the whole has always been very important to me. In classes, the learning occurs at the pace of the slowest learner to make sure no one gets left behind. Granted, this has changed in the past year and a half with the advent of Medical School but overall, the idea remains.
The Numbers. Percentage-wise, the US and India aren't at opposite ends of the scale in their poverty numbers: 12% and 27.5% respectively. But when I take into account the population, the US has ~36.4 million people under the poverty line while India has 321.5 million under the poverty line. For comparison, the total population of the United states is just over 300 million strong. This makes it harder for me to spend on people and organizations that service just the United States.
I do hope I have the nerve to offer up my services to groups like Doctors without Borders or go and provide free clinic care annually to areas that receive no care usually unless they travel hundreds of miles to the nearest hospitals which are too expensive for them and have overcrowding issues. That would be the best thing that I could accomplish to serve my fellow suffering human beings.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
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