“Only great souls know the grandeur there is in charity.” – Jacques BeNigne Bossuet
This holiday season, Americans will spend nearly $500 billion dollars on holiday gifts. This past weekend alone, Americans spent $52.4 billion dollars on holiday shopping.
The money will be spent on electronics, clothes, books, toys, vacations, jewelry, gift cards, video games, DVD’s, CD’s, and cookware. Some gifts will meet legitimate needs (for example, my son will open some new clothes this holiday season). But let’s face it, most gifts will try to satisfy wants: a new Barbie for your daughter, the newest video game for your son, or a K-cup coffee maker for your mother-in-law. Worse yet, many holiday shoppers will spend hours trying to find just the right gift for the “guy who already has everything.”
Meanwhile, there are countless charitable organizations all over this country meeting very real needs of people that will go without holiday gifts. These charitable organizations are providing food and shelter to those without any. They are protecting battered women. They are offering educational assistance to those who most need it. They are offering new opportunities at life for those who have had it taken it from them. And they are counting on year-end giving to keep their doors open for another year.
In short, they are not providing wants. They are meeting needs.
I’m not against giving gifts. In fact, I think that a well-thought-out, timely gift can communicate love and appreciation to a loved one. But I am against foolishly spending all of my holiday spending on those who already have much… when there are so many in desperate need.
Consider just a sampling of some local charitable organizations and the work they are doing to meet the needs of very real people…
- Bicycles for Humanity – Bicycles for Humanity enables people to raise funds and collect unwanted bicycles to send to reliable partners in developing countries.
- Blind Babies Foundation – When an infant or preschooler is identified as blind or visually impaired, Blind Babies Foundation provides family-centered services to support the child’s optimal development and access to the world.
- Brain Injury Adventure Camp – The Brain Injury Adventure Camp, Inc. (BIAC) is an organization that provides activities and education to persons suffering from a traumatic brain injury.
- City Harvest – City Harvest collects excess food from all segments of the food industry, including restaurants, grocers, corporate cafeterias, manufacturers, and farms. This food is then delivered free of charge to community food programs throughout New York City using a fleet of trucks and bikes as well as volunteers on foot.
- Comfort Cafe– The Comfort Cafe is a not-for-profit gourmet restaurant that offers gluten free, vegan, and other dishes, using local, fresh, organic ingredients – on a pay-as-you-can basis – allowing people of all social classes to enjoy food, community, and comfort.
- The Connection – The Connection Youth Services provides help to teens and families in crisis in Howell, MI.
- Dare to Dream Children’s Foundation – Dare to Dream recruits and trains volunteers to educate, inspire, and mentor wounded youth in group homes, shelters, orphanages, and detention centers in Dallas, TX.
- Days For Girls – Days for Girls International works to get washable feminine hygiene kits into the hands of those that would otherwise go without allowing them to attend school, work, etc.
- Eat Art – Eat Art is an eclectic collection of photographers, painters & designers committed to artfully ending hunger. When you purchase any art or apparel, meals are sent to hungry children around the world. You get the art. The kids get to eat.
- Essex CHIPS – At Essex CHIPS, youth work in collaboration with adults to deliver youth programming, parent education, substance abuse prevention campaigns and direct local healthy living initiatives for local teens in their community.
- Feed the Need – Feed the Need is a volunteer organization dedicated to promoting education and awareness of local hunger issues by sponsoring physical activities and events.
- Girls Think Tank – Girls Think Tank inspires, empowers and organizes its community in San Diego to advance basic human dignity through activism and advocacy.
- Growing Home – Growing Home’s mission is to operate, promote, and demonstrate the use of organic agriculture as a vehicle for job training, employment, and community development.
- Hoops for Hope – Started by middle-school student, Austin Gutwein, Hoops of Hope is the world’s largest free-throw marathon. Similar to a walk-a-thon, participants raise awareness and funds for children who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS by shooting free throws.
- The Hunger Task Force – Hunger Task Force in Milwaukee, WI believes that every person has a right to adequate food obtained with dignity. Hunger Task Force works to prevent hunger and malnutrition by providing food to people in need today and by promoting social policies to achieve a hunger free community tomorrow.
- Living Yoga – Living Yoga is an outreach program teaching yoga as a tool for personal change to disadvantaged individuals in prisons, drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, and transitional facilities in Portland, OR.
- Maggie’s Place – Maggie’s Place is a community that provides houses of hospitality for expectant women in Phoenix, AZ who wish to achieve their goals in a dignified atmosphere.
- Mary House – Mary House is a community based organization that provides transitional housing services, shelter and support programs to homeless and struggling families, while providing a safe haven that allows families to reclaim their dignity.
- Nebraska Children’s Home Society – Nebraska Children’s Home Society provides safe and loving care to children of all ages throughout the state of Nebraska.
- New Beginning Center – The mission of New Beginning Center is to foster an environment of safety, support and respect for families affected by domestic violence.
- Open Door Mission – Open Door Mission provides men, women and children in Omaha living in poverty with safe shelter beds, nutritious meals daily, and preventive measures.
- Pencils of Promise – Pencils of Promise builds schools in the developing world and trains socially conscious young leaders to take action at home and abroad.
- Plant with Purpose – Plant With Purpose reverses deforestation and poverty around the world by transforming the lives of the rural poor.
- Rocky Mt Children’s Law Center – The mission of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center is to protect and save the lives of abused and neglected children through zealous legal advocacy, innovative programs and public policy reform.
- Sarah’s Circle – Sarah’s Circle’s serves the women in Chicago Uptown’s community who are homeless or in need of a safe space by offering comprehensive physical services, permanent supportive housing, clinical services, a network of resources, and community.
- Second Harvest Food Bank – Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara serves an area stretching from South San Francisco to Gilroy and from the ocean to the bay helping ensure that those who need food have access to it.
- Slam Diabetes – Slam Diabetes’ mission is to help kids with type 1 diabetes and their families deal with this unrelenting disease through empowered living: better glucose management, exercise, diet and education and by raising funds for scholarships, grants and sponsorships for kids and their family members to attend camps and conferences created to help them develop skills and practices.
- Spectrum Youth and Family Services – Spectrum empowers teenagers, young adults, people with a history of violence, and their families in Burlington and throughout Vermont to make and sustain positive changes through prevention, intervention, and life skills services.
- Sunny Hills Services – The mission of Sunny Hills Services is to engage vulnerable children and youth, enrich their connection with family and community and empower them to lead healthy, rewarding lives.
- Warren Village – Warren Village is a unique family community helping motivated low-income, previously homeless single-parent families move from public assistance to personal and economic self-sufficiency through subsidized housing, on-site nationally accredited child care, advocacy/case management, educational guidance and career development.
- Women’s Bean Project – The Women’s Bean Project transforms the lives of women by teaching job readiness and life skills for entry-level jobs through employment in our gourmet food production and handmade jewelry manufacturing businesses.
- Your Local Charity. – Dedicated to meeting the needs of real people in your local community.
Jessica says
Definitely consider donating to your local animal shelter or a clinic that performs affordable spaying and neutering!
Donating to an animal organization would be a hugely welcomed gift for an animal lover.
Kelley says
So true! Whenever someone asks me what I want for Christmas or B-day, I say a donation to Best Friends Animal Society or the local animal shelter. That is the best gift!
Living the Balanced Life says
Awesome list of possible places to share with! This weekend, we will be helping with a program where underprivileged and at-risk youth are partnered with a person in uniform and given a $100 gift card to buy for their families and/or for themselves. It is called Shop with a Hero and we LOVE it. Our whole church gets involved, not only by giving financially, but by coming out and serving these kids and their families.
I will also check out your list above, I am sure I can find a cause that tugs at my heart!
Bernice
6 things happy people do (and you should too!)
Shirley Trevor says
I am giving all my nieces and nephews chickens. Chickens that will be donated,in their names, to families, for food, plus they help control insects and fertilize gardens. I list 5 charities that directly and almost immediately help someone else.
http://unpacktherat.com/2011/11/23/i-want-to-be-like-angelina/
Thanks for your extended list covering our local communities. It makes me want to look around – right here and see what I can find.
Colleen says
This year, my partner and I are in a much better place financially, and it’s been truly a delight to plan our holiday shopping for people we don’t even know! A local organization called The Aliveness Project (http://www.aliveness.org) provides care for individuals and families dealing with HIV/AIDS. We volunteered to make a holiday basket for a couple, and it’s been a joy to think that we’re providing so much for them that they need.
And not only do I get to give back some of my financial wealth, I also get to give some of myself, as well. They both asked for warm clothes, so I’ve been handknitting each of them a scarf and a pair of mittens. (And up here in Minnesota, those are absolutely not a luxury.)
Gip @ So Much More Life says
I’ve been involved with some HIV/AIDS charities in the past, and that’s very rewarding work. I think direct-care organizations are the best place to donate to human needs because you can see for yourself the good that your donations do.
Gip
Gip @ So Much More Life says
Thanks for putting together such a good post. I gave up giving or getting gifts many years ago — long before I started my minimalist blog — but when the spirit moves me, I make donations instead of gifts.
One of my favorite charities is Bat World Sanctuary (www.batworld.org) in Mineral Wells, Texas and other places. You can adopt an injured bat and allow your recipient to keep up with its progress. If you don’t know what bats do for the world, visit this site.
Mentioning them here is my gift to them and to you this year.
Gip
Jt Clough | Big Island Dog says
Last night I saw a report on families living in their cars because it was the only thing they had left. One 15 year old girl who was interviewed was grateful for the truck she lived in. For being able to have the opportunity to go to school after she cleaned up for the morning in a gas station bathroom. The report just before it? Americans hit a record high spending for Black Friday. It saddened me. There is something seriously wrong.
Mahalo for the list. I will certainly share it. This year, especially after getting rid of most o my things and moving to Hawaii I’m struck by what we need and what we want. And I really struck by how much good goes around to everyone by giving and be conscious of needs of others.
Gene says
Jt, Your comment is powerful. Acknowledging that something is seriously wrong here, we need to make it right.
Tiffany says
Love this post. As I get older (and hopefully wiser), the traditional Christmas seems more and more foreign to me. I don’t want anything other than to spend time with family and friends!
This year I am SO happy that my husband’s family has decided to exchange no gifts. We’ve decided to use the money we would have spent on those gifts to buy presents for people in a local nursing facility (our church has a list of residents and their wants/needs). It is such a rewarding way to celebrate Christmas. I’m working on getting my family to cut out the gifts as well…but they’re not as receptive!
Gene says
Bravo to you, Josh for this timely and marvelous post. Please read my pre-Thanksgiving post: http://thevitruvianman.org/?p=893. It’s about how corporations like Walmart step up to the bar and do their share as well. In part it reads,
“Here’s the math … according to Walmart’s corporate page this very day, Walmart has 9,826 stores in 28 countries around the world. Walmart contributes multiple times each week to the food bank, but just for a minute, let’s say that the ton we picked up today represents Walmart’s weekly contribution. If every Walmart in the world contributed one ton of food each week, Walmart contributes 19,652,000 pounds of food to hungry, needy people each week, the equivalent of half-a-million tons of food a year!”
It is indeed a time for giving and sharing. Bravo to you and to everyone else who refuses to pass the buck.
Josh Martin says
Wow! Great list – thanks for putting this together. So many great options to help out those less fortunate this holiday season. Just imagine the good that $52.4 billion could do on stuff that really matters.
Megyn @ Minimalist Mommi says
What a great list! I’ll definitely be sharing! Since you’re in the Phoenix area now, I’ll suggest a few others: UMOM, St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance, Ronald McDonald House, AZ Humane Society, Child Crisis Center, AZ Animal Welfare League, Sojourner Center…just to name a few. I’ve either been involved or donated to pretty much all of the above and can personally vouch for what great local organizations they are.
And Maggie’s Place is simply amazing!!