Season's Givings? 238
DevanJedi asks: "Many people around the world plan their charitable giving around this time of the year, for religious, tax or other similarly benevolent reasons. As a geek who spends an inordinate amount of time around his computer, I have compiled a list of entities that have made my geek life easier, in the past year. Which other projects does Slashdot believe to be worthy of praise, money, recognition, developer time or general applause?"
Food banks (Score:5, Insightful)
Be unselfish (Score:5, Insightful)
I, for one, am giving to the Salvation Army. During the hurricanes, they did an enormous amount of thankless work. They did not receive the publicity of the Red Cross, but as is typical, they are the first to arrive and the last to leave. They work endless hours, seemingly tirelessly, and never lose their smiles. They shun self-promotion. These are truly wonderful people.
Re:Charitable giving (Score:1, Insightful)
What the hell is the point of this entire post? If you want to be charitable, give to a charity that will feed the hungry or shelter the homeless! Giving old hardrives to the (relatively) well-off is not charity - it's just getting rid of crap you don't want anymore.
Re:Charitable giving (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of stuff, give time! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ubuntu (Score:2, Insightful)
And don't get me wrong, they'll take your money with smiles on their faces and love in their hearts, but what they'd really love for Christmas is a little of your time and talent.
Re:Food banks (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to the reasons for cash you mentioned above, food banks are often needting to by perishables , such as milk, eggs, bread, meat, cheese and so on, in addition to whatever it's short of at any given time. Money is often invaluable to a food bank.
My annual donation to the food bank is always in cash.
Re:Charitable giving (Score:2, Insightful)
While giving money certainly isn't the only option or the best option necessarily, that doesn't make it the worst option. Many charities require a combination of material donations, such as money, as well as donations of time through volunteering to be sucessful. Consider something like a soup kitchen. Its true that if it only gets material donations, it won't be effective without volunteers to prepare and distribute them. However, it won't be effective either if it only has volunteers without any food to distribute. The point of charity is to give what you can to help those in need. A person lacking free time that gives money is not exercising a worse option than someone else lacking money that gives their time, and neither is the reverse true. To try and form a pecking order out of the different types of charitable giving is to lose sight of the bigger picture.
Helping the needy (Score:1, Insightful)
There's nothing wrong with that. Giving to charities is a great thing, and certainly, the guy is free to give to whomever he wants. But I think it is very important also to help people based on how great their need is, rather than what they have done for us.
There are people suffering from AIDS, violenceI don't know about this..., and famine (especially in Africa) who need our help. In Western countries, there are homeless people, drug addicts, prisoners, the elderly. These are all people who deserve respect, love, and human dignity.
It is fine to give to GNOME et. al., but when you do that, please remember the less fortunate as well.
Give the right amount to the right places (Score:2, Insightful)
Think about how many Africans will die (malnourishment, diseases) because you use your "charity" budget on stuff that makes your life better.
Think about exactly why you would be outraged if millions of people died of hunger or cold (think Pakistan) in your country, yet this is not such a big deal if it happens far enough away.
Think about how much suffering could be prevented if you gave 10% of your income, how little suffering that would cause you, and why you (like most people) consider it okay to give much less than that.
International Red Cross [icrc.org]
Médécins sans frontières [msf.org]
UN World Food Programme [wfp.org]
Re:Be unselfish (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Food banks (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, if you work for a food producer of some sort, it would be huge if you could help arrange a deal with your local food bank.
Re:Be unselfish (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Be unselfish (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't hate religion. There isn't anything terribly wrong with believing in a power beyond one's self and brotherhood with your fellow man. Hate the corruption and human fallibility that has wound tight over the millenia with the threads of innocent belief.
Project Gutenberg (Score:2, Insightful)
faces... (Score:4, Insightful)
The guy who makes sure the traffic lights on the way to work don't go green both ways and gets you killed gets nothing?
I don't mean to sound like Mr. Pink here, but this is a great example of how baffling the rules for who gets a gratuity are.
Perhaps you could ask yourself, if I'm only giving it to people I see and not the most deserving regardless, who am I really doing it for?
Re:Food banks (Score:1, Insightful)