Does anyone here help with any charities or places that help the needy?

There's this church close to where I live where I go two Wednesdays of every month to donate clothing. 💛 I also do a lot of donating to Unicef and St.Jude. I started doing that two years ago.  :)

Yes.  It is good to give and good to volunteer/serve, too.

Every year my church does a project after Easter where they have all the congregation doing volunteer shifts to prepare vegetable seed packets for poor people in certain poor African countries (at the host countries' request).  The vegetable seeds are making a huge difference in their lives, having vegetable gardens where before there were none.  That's just one example.  We like doing this and we like to take our pseudo-grandkids along because they enjoy it and learn the value of volunteering.

I also give - at my workplace they instituted a new collection system where they collect what I say from my paycheck and distribute it to the charities I designate.  I choose my charities carefully, and feel really good about giving.  For instance, look up a charity called Feed My Starving Children.  They do amazing work, have volunteers help them to keep costs down, and go through non-government channels so their food gets through to the starving children.  For instance, they were some of the first to arrive when disaster hit Haiti.  There are a lot of other good charities out there - it's great to be on the helping end of things.

I give embarrassingly little, $30 a month to Save The Children, and I did throw a couple of hundred to UNICEF to the famine struck parts of Africa/Yemen last year I believe. I should really give more, but I have to figure out this tax stuff with my retirement savings plan along with charitable tax deductions etc. first.

Oh yes. For a number of years I did volunteer work for a Catholic Charities office local to me. Mostly I helped with their data entry, but I also contributed by donating clothing... as well as food (in fact, every month on the first Sunday, the church I attend has a food drive; all donated food goes to the Catholic Charities food service).

I've been sponsoring a child in Africa for the last 6 years with plan international. https://plan-international.org/
I usually also give in cases of disasters and famines however being long term unemployed and therefore running out of money has reduced that.
I also used to give blood but my body doesn't really like that and last time I collapsed so I've stopped doing that.

I give embarrassingly little, $30 a month to Save The Children, and I did throw a couple of hundred to UNICEF to the famine struck parts of Africa/Yemen last year I believe. I should really give more, but I have to figure out this tax stuff with my retirement savings plan along with charitable tax deductions etc. first.


Any amount of our donations help!


Oh yes. For a number of years I did volunteer work for a Catholic Charities office local to me. Mostly I helped with their data entry, but I also contributed by donating clothing... as well as food (in fact, every month on the first Sunday, the church I attend has a food drive; all donated food goes to the Catholic Charities food service).


That's wonderful! They do the same at our church.



I've been sponsoring a child in Africa for the last 6 years with plan international. https://plan-international.org/
I usually also give in cases of disasters and famines however being long term unemployed and therefore running out of money has reduced that.
I also used to give blood but my body doesn't really like that and last time I collapsed so I've stopped doing that.


I've been thinking about sponsoring a child. But of course can't think about I should just do it.

I used to run the local food shelf & sat on the board of directors for the organization that it fell under. I stopped volunteering for them because of the politics of it all-talk about a clickish bunch of people.  ::) I really hated to leave because I like to think that I helped a lot of people when I was there. Most of those people are gone now and I have been thinking about going back. 

In the meanwhile, I make a monthly donation of $50 to Heifer International, Vermont Foodbank, & my local Humane Society (where I adopted my Electra). I have one more $50 donation I can make and haven't found the right place yet. I was going to include the local women's shelter. I wrote them a check with a note saying that I wanted it to be on a regular basis and to give me a call. Never heard from them-never even a thank-you, but they cashed my check. So, the way I look at it, they didn't want my money so I will find some place else to donate.

What I like about Heifer International, they don't just feed poor people but give them a livelihood so they won't be poor and need to be fed. 

I did make a one-time donate to AmeriCorp after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico and when others are trying to raise $$$$ for causes.


BTW, before you donate anywhere, you might want to check this out:

https://www.charitynavigator.org/

I WILL not donate to any organization that spends more $$$$ on admin and/or advertising than they do on programs. I understand that there is overhead. For me, they have to spend AT LEAST 75% or higher on programs.



Cat

Oh, BTW:  http://www.inthe00s.com/index.php?topic=35276.0



Cat