Put my money where my mouth is

A friend of mine shared a post on Facebook that this Orange County dog adoption and care center is seeking $5 donations during the month of May. $5 helps to feed two dogs for one day. I put up $35 for a week’s worth of food for two poochas. I wish we could adopt one :(

You can help too.

I have enough credit in my Kiva account to make another loan, so I contributed $25 to Vladimir, an Armenian auto repair technician.

Vladimir is 28 years old. He is married and has a son and daughter. Vladimir’s wife is a homemaker and takes care of the little ones. Vladimir lives with his family and parents in the town of Kapan. For almost 30 years, Vladimir’s father has been involved in auto repairs in his own garage.

In 2008, Vladimir and his father opened their own private premises for auto repairs. They have regular customers in Kapan. Vladimir has a hard but lucrative job that allows him to support his family.

Vladimir needs a loan of 800,000 Armenian drams to buy auto parts and tools for his auto repair activities.

Good luck, Vladimir!

A friend’s baby is having her first birthday. The parents sent out invitations along with a brief blurb about the Providence Child Center with an exhortation to consider making a donation to the center instead of buying presents for the kid.

Knowing that this baby already has way more stuff than it could ever possibly need (mostly because grandma is OBSESSED), I elected to make a donation. No wrapping, no mess, nothing to get rid of later when the kid has grown out of it. Doubleplusgood.

I teach in a very affluent community. Most of our students do not qualify for government assistance, and we are not a Title 1 school. However, there’s a family at our school who is technically homeless right now, which is very unusual for this area. They are living with friends after having been evicted from their apartment. There are five children in the family, and they probably won’t have a Christmas this year because Mom needs to put food on the table. Dad is nonpresent.

So several teachers and one of the counselors at our school are kicking in for some Christmas gifts. Each of us chose a child to buy for (I picked the youngest girl, because the Man’s goddaughter is about the same age), and bought some clothes and toys. Our counselor is going to wrap everything and coordinate getting it to the family. $50 means an extra caroling gig that I have to pick up, but losing a few hours of my time is a hell of a lot better than a five-year-old having nothing on Christmas day.

Today as I was driving in the rain (which Californians SUCK at, by the way), I heard a story on the radio. A woman who had lost her husband to a brain hemorrhage two decades ago had traveled across the US, on the 20th anniversary of his death, in order to meet the man who received her husband’s donated heart. The donation recipient is an attorney in my hometown area.

I remembered I hadn’t signed up to be an organ donor, and thinking about it, I realized that I’ve known quite a few people who have been directly affected by the receipt of a donated organ. My hairdresser’s husband has been suffering from kidney problems for years and just came home from receiving his transplant a few weeks ago. During my first year at the university, one of my good friends traveled to San Francisco with his father to be with him during his kidney transplant. I’m sure if I asked, I’d be aware of more of my friends whose lives and families’ lives have been changed by organ donors.

People have concerns that if they register to be an organ donor, they won’t be given lifesaving care if they are in an emergency situation. This is not true – the medical emergency team is a different group of people than the organ donation team.

I signed up. I’m relatively young, healthy, an O+ blood type (universal donor), with no smoking or drug history and low alcohol consumption. I hope I can help someone else if I suddenly find myself no longer in need of my vital bits.

You can help too.

A friend of mine is the artistic director for a 40-voice choir in the OC, and many of my colleagues from the university are paid singers in this choir. They’re doing a fundraising drive where if they get a certain number of donors (NOT dollars), they will receive extra funding from a grant. So they get $50 from me :)

as I was escaping from campus to get my lunch at the grocery store today, I passed a woman on the corner on my way in. She had a blanket in front of her with several children’s stuffed toys on it, and a sign that said “Will trade toys for food/milk/diapers.” I don’t know if I’m just hormonal or depressed or what right now, but that broke my heart.

$20 was as much cash as I could get from my debit card at the grocery store, but I hope it was enough to do some good for that lady and her kids. Maybe I’m a sucker and I got taken, but I couldn’t pass by her without doing something.

For those of you who don’t know 43T member More_Circumspect (a.k.a. The Warrior Queen and the Jellied Eel), she has made a joyful promise to her sister that they will get to travel to Copenhagen together this Christmas.

It must be this Christmas, because her sister’s eyesight is slowly deteriorating, and much past December she may not be able to see much at all. I think of how I would be reacting if this were my sister, or if I were the one saddled with retinitis pigmentosa…and my heart absolutely breaks.

I will be forgoing 25 GBP worth of unnecessaries in order to contribute to their Copenhagen fund – I know it’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. If her story so moves you, consider buying a postcard at one of her Zazzle stores, where I believe The Rattish One has contributed some designs :)

MaaShaa, a friend of mine from college, is doing a fundraising run to support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Since I haven’t been using my gym membership recently, I’m going to suspend it again. Instead, the $100 that would have been spent on this month’s gym dues is going to be donated to his running team (consisting of M. and his fiancée). At least this way, someone will benefit from that money, rather than it being wasted.

Also, every $1 donated gets me a vote towards whether or not M. should participate in No-Shave November. Since I know he is truly awful at growing facial hair, of course I put my vote in the YES pile :)

I went through Spatz’s profile for a “free trial” $25 loan, which turned out to be the last one needed for Karen, a cosmetics saleslady from Peru.

Then I also funded Miguel, a rickshaw driver in Peru and Mercy, who sells cereal/grains in Kenya. Both loans were put in with Team 43T!

Since Spatz hooked me up with the free trial, I’ll count this as two loans. Hopefully in a few months I can make two more. I’d like to do 10 this year, but I’m getting a late start on it.