I am contributing to a friend's blog here. He says we're blogging "in community," so I guess I'm a part of something bigger than myself now. Perhaps this will spur consistency or at least greater frequency. In any case, hope this new blog (with higher-quality posts?) will make its way onto your RSS feed. Any links to it from yours are appreciated.

For now, the lights on the set of thesecondeclectic will go dark. Maybe there's hope for resurrection yet. Or maybe just transformation.

Thanks to the few faithful.

I'd heard about them before, but my dad reminded me of them Saturday when he mentioned having heard about them last week. Coincidentally, I got a letter on Saturday telling me that I was eligible to renew my contract and get a new phone. With Cell Phones for Soldiers in mind, I headed over to Verizon and browsed their selection. I'm usually not one to make a switch too quickly when it's something that I'll have to live with everyday for the next two years. But, partly motivated by the opportunity to give to this cause, I found a phone I liked and picked it up.

Cell Phones for Soldiers has a very simple mission: "Help our troops call home." I like it because it's straightforward and simple. What's unique about Cell Phones for Soldiers is that two teenagers, after learning about the prohibitive costs and difficulties for soldiers trying to call their families, decided to do something about it. Now they collect donated phones and redeem them for cash from a company that refurbishes them. With the money, they buy prepaid calling cards and give them to soldiers so they can call home.

Everyone wins. Cell phones are recycled: Good for the environment. Soldiers connect with their families: Good for relationships.

Afterwards, I had plans to meet up with friends at Panera Bread. When I arrived, I was telling them about my new phone, and for some reason one of them asked if I'd kept my old phone. When they learned I had, they were all excited because one of them had just lost his. So, I donated my phone to my friend. I know, I know. What about he soldiers? This is the worst ending to a good cause story ever. I don't even end up supporting the cause I'm promoting. That's like when Ross Perot had a platform to "Buy American" and was found to drive a foreign car.

I got no defense. But I'm not running for President.

Labels: good causes

It doesn't take much to fill a plastic bag with flour and rice and dried meat and vegetables. You could do it efficiently with a conveyor belt and a few packaging machines. You could save time and be fiscally responsible by doing it that way. Overtime the fixed costs for those machines would pay off, and people could just keep giving money for the maintenance and the materials, but Feed My Starving Children isn't using common sense; they're using uncommon sense.

I found a newsletter outlining food costs and child nourishment stories on the mail table (a wooden TV tray) inside our apartment door. It was addressed to my roommate, Mike, the socially responsible guy that he is. I picked it up and thumbed through it. In Haiti, I could give $300 and provide food for a family of 5 for a year! That's more people than live in my apartment, and we could do that no problem.

The unique approach of Feed My Starving Children is that they use volunteers to fill and seal bags of food, box them up and get the ready to send overseas. This gives insulated Americans a tangible, non-financial way to get involved in meeting the tangible, non-financial needs of people around the word. I first heard about it from my parents, who drove two hours to a car dealership in Des Moines that had closed on a Saturday to sponsor this event inside their showroom. They went with 4 or 5 other couples and joined about 100 people, packaging thousands of bags of food, each one feeding a child for at least a week. My sister and her husband, along with some of their friends, did the same thing, and had a blast.

There's so much good to be done.

Labels: good causes

St. Jude, the "Forgotten Saint," is the "patron saint of desperate cases," apropos for the hospital dedicated to helping children with terminal illnesses. St. Jude's is certainly not lacking for support and publicity. Their cast rivals any movie ever filmed (perhaps with the exceptions of Ocean's 11 et al. and The Departed). Their homepage boasts the faces of Jennifer Aniston, Robin Williams, Antonio Banderas, Bernie Mac, Ray Romano, and Reggie Bush.

Yahoo! is advertising St. Jude today in a brief, almost missed note in the upper-right-hand corner of the front page today, the day before Thanksgiving: "Help save a child's life. Donate to St. Jude."

It seems that the visibility of good causes rises during the holiday season. The likes of The Salvation Army outside local big box stores represents that fact. Apparently the thinking behind this is that in this season of giving, where generosity is hailed as the noble spirit of the season, consumers are more willing to give selflessly, more likely to donate in that spirit.

This may be true, although I wonder if giving as "the spirit of the season" is just the culture's raison d'etre for the holidays while taking is the true spirit that we stifle when we speak of the season. I know I can lose that weaker noble impulse in the stronger base one. I wonder if the increased donations are due more to the visibility of good causes around the holidays than to the generous spirit of consumers.

The other virtue that is apparent here is protecting the children. I wondered aloud at this to some friends when I recalled for them the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis this summer. There was a school bus on the bridge, and the newscasters were quick to report that the children had been rescued and helped to safety, none seriously hurt. A friend observed, "That's a virtue because kids can't help themselves. They need to be rescued, taken care of, looked after."

The same seems to be true for St. Jude's patrons. These children can't help themselves in their terminal status. Often, neither can adults who have the same illnesses. Yet, children also do not have a voice to be heard, to make known their needs, to recieve the help they need. Someone must become their advocate. Even Jesus said this, "Let them come to me," when his disciples would not allow them to be heard. His own followers stifled the voices of the desperate cases. In the same way, many other things in the "spirit of the season" vie for and distract our attention, including our own selfishness. Even St. Jude's, the megaphone for those without voices, only had two sentences tucked away in the corner of a webpage.

Labels: good causes

I got a postcard at work advertising an "International Gift Sale" today. Ten Thousand Villages is a non-profit ministry of a local church. At the home of, I assume, a parishoner, they are selling handmade gifts created by and benefitting "third world artisans." They had a sale last year around this time I think; I remember some friends' mentioning it and the expensive coffee they were pouring at the event.

International artisans, fair trade coffee: It's very cultural.

Nonetheless, it is a good cause toward which I could contribute money.

It seems a trend in U.S. good causes: to get something for giving. Very American: only we would come up with "Let's give people incentives to give!" It's the same case with the Switchfoot single for Habitat and the Free Rice word game. I'm surprisingly uncynical about this trend though. If we get something like justice-oriented fair trade coffee and pay a bit more, a song for helping someone get home, or some word-knowledge or word-love for feeding the hungry, I think that's okay.

Although, I do wonder at Jesus' words: "Those who do something for the reward of recognition can be sure that's all they'll ever get." I guess we take our chances.

Labels: good causes

Being an editor and a lover of words, Free Rice plays to my strengths, or at least my interests. I saw it first circulating on Facebook, among friends of similar ilk.

The concept is simple: You simply guess the right synonym for an obscure word, and if you're right, 10 grains of rice are donated "through the United Nations to help end world hunger."

If you're wrong, they give you an easier word, so you can get it right and make your contribution of rice. So, it accomodates those who aren't great with words but still helps them learn, and it makes the contributions possible at the same time.

According to their site, they are associated with a sister site, Poverty.com, and they goal is to do two things: end world hunger and end vocabulary poverty. As far as I can tell, the donations are funded by 3 advertisers that appear at the bottom of the game page, which refreshes with each play.

The goals are as simple and single-minded as the game itself. In a day when everything is complex and options are endless, simplicity is refreshing.

Labels: good causes

One of my favorite bands is known as Switchfoot. In October, I went to see them on their "Appetite for Construction" tour. With this tour, $1 of every ticket went to Habitat for Humanity, the well-known good cause started by President Jimmy Carter.

At the concert, Switchfoot, along with their two opening bands, performed a song called, "Rebuild." The song is available for download, and Jon Foreman, Switchfoot's lead singer, sent an email letting fans know about it. He gave a little back story on the growing meaning of the song.

"This summer, Matt Thiessen and I began to write a song specifically for our
fall tour . . . Afterwards, we said our goodbyes and both bands parted ways and
drove on down the road. Hours later his bus burned down. After the flames died
down, the song and the tour had a much deeper meaning. Now, as our hometown of
San Diego recovers from the worst fires we've ever been through, this song has a
deeper meaning still."

For the song, Switchfoot is asking its fans to give time or money to Habitat for Humanity.

Labels: good causes

UPS has cornered the market on the color brown. Apple has made white the color of choice for their products. Other companies are attempting similar monotone takeovers. Meanwhile, pink is taken. Breast cancer has successfully made pink synonymous with breast cancer awareness. So much so that when I saw stacks of Campbell's Tomato soup and Chicken Noodle soup with pink labels at the grocery last night, it was intuitive that buying those soup cans would support breast cancer in some way.

Sure enough, on the label it reads "Join the Fight. Your purchase of this can will help Campbell make a donation in support of breast cancer awareness. Together we can make a difference."

Apparently supporting good causes is good business these days too. Or at least supporting breast cancer is. I'm encouraged by this trend, seeing big businesses support good causes and seeing consumers support businesses supporting good causes. It tells me that consumers are serious about doing good, supporting good causes, and being concerned beyond themselves. Whether businesses see it as good business, good PR, or just good, I don't know. Campbell's doubled their sales with these pink cans. My hope is that those additional proceeds do fund breast cancer research and awareness, so I'm stifling the cynic and supporting what good there is here.

Labels: good causes