Strollerderby : charities

Babble Attends the Smart Cookie Awards

editors — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:07:00 GMT

On Monday, we attended the 3rd annual Smart Cookie Awards at Jazz at Lincoln Center. It was very glamorous. We ran into Babble writer Brett Berk at the cocktail hour and Debra Messing brushed by us while we were chatting. Honoree Salma Hayek didn’t show, alas! But lots of other stars and other fancy people did.

Among them: Uma Thurman, Deborah Roberts, and the reps for various noble charities like Room to Grow and Hearts of Gold. So many great causes were represented.

And what an ideal time to celebrate good works! Babble agrees with Cookie that this is the time to help if you can. We’ve recently donated to Housing Works, Books for Soldiers, Children’s Aid Society, and ReadThis.

We hope if you can do some do-gooding you will. And if you need a hand, look into what’s available. In our Holiday Gift Guides we like to recommend easy-to-use, see-where-your-money-goes sites like ModestNeeds.org. So go give some money! Or go ask for some!

P.S. Check out the view of rainy Columbus Circle from our table . . .

Teaching Kids to Share -- Their Money

Madeline Holler — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:38:00 GMT

Raising a little philanthropist sounds so great in theory. But in practice? I can't quite figure out how to get it going.

I could do what parents did when I was growing up, which was to tell their kids exactly how much of their allowance to turn over to the church. But where's the lesson? The lifelong habit? We don't want charitable giving to be motivated from guilt, right? And where should the money go? Do kids get the concept of others in need?

Emily Bazelon, a writer for Slate, watched her sons get involved in charity -- one of them raising money to save an ophaned elephant in Kenya that had fallen down a well. She asks whether it wouldn't have been more relevant to raise money on behalf of orphans -- actual human ones -- in their hometown, Washington, D.C.

She concludes, with the help of David Owen, author of The First National Bank of Dad, a book on teaching kids about money, that the opportunity to give is more important than who the actual beneficiary is.

She writes:

Owen argues that "when parents require their children to give away a certain amount of money every week or every month, the parents are really just craftily confiscating what they believe to be excess resources." He thinks that young kids, especially, have a natural interest in giving, and that if they see you do it, they'll follow along unbidden.

OK, that makes sense. Bazelon also notes peer pressure in her older son's pursuit to save the elephant. Once his classmates were on board they each made items to sell. And it was fun. If he had to act alone, he might have felt less motivated -- or completely overwhelmed.

Both her sons' philanthropic acts have come through organized efforts. But I'd like some other ideas. Do you teach your young kids about giving? If so, how? And for what? What about the kids who don't want to share their money. Do you force them?

Am I really going to have to take a class?

Teaching Rich Kids Not to Be Tools

Amy Kuras — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:24:00 GMT

I really hate rich people. Or, at least, the entitled asshole attitude so many rich people project – that because they are used to their staff jumping when they snap their fingers, that everyone else must do the same. And then there's the cluelessness about how the world works for regular people. Gah. Hate.

So I saw this article from the UK Guardian as a positive thing. Wealthy people in the UK, especially those involved in London's financial and banking industries, are beginning to teach their kids about philanthropy.

Demand is growing, both because of an increasingly professional approach to philanthropy in Britain, growing numbers of super-wealthy people, and increasing discontent over the growing gap between rich and poor.

Participants in the classes learn about different causes they may want to contribute to, the best ways to make an impact and how to set up charitable giving.

Courses range from three-hour seminars for individual families to 40-hour courses for a group of young people.
One financier who set up a course for his 11 and 13 year old children and gave them a 10,000-pound philanthropy budget said he did it to give them a little more structure and education about charity, instead of abstract notions of doing good. As they learned more, their interests shifted from animals and more abstract issues to children, and they ended up deciding to focus on fighting child abuse.

As our own rich celebs get more and more shallow and horrible (Paris, anybody?) it's good to see that some people actually believe in using money for good.

8-Year-Old Kid's Toy Drive

Kelly Mills — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 17:01:00 GMT

I've been feeling the tyranny of Christmas this year. Everywhere I look, there's displays exhorting me to buy more crap for folks; the stress of getting it together has been making me edgy; and frankly, people drive like jerks this time of year. So when I watched this clip about Stephen Smith in an effort to find things to post about, I was only slightly into it. (Partly because the newscaster's chatter is just idiotic.) Yeah, he's an 8-year-old who started a toy drive when he was 3. That's very sweet. But you know, somehow I was just feeling sold.

My 6-year-old was watching my computer from a ways away over my shoulder, and when the clip ended, she asked me, "What are you doing?" "Looking for stories to post about," I absently replied.

"I think you should write about that one," she said. "Because that kid is pretty cool. I mean, not everyone celebrates Christmas, but when kids do, and they don't have any money for toys...Well, that boy made a party for them. I like that." She smiled to herself. "He's a very, very sweet boy."

Okay, you got me. And here you go.

Thieves Who Learned Nothing From The Grinch

makeitadouble — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:01:00 GMT

Bill Murray once proclaimed in his role as the cynically self-absorbed TV Executive Frank Cross in Scrooged who discovers the spirit of Christmas, “It’s the time of the year when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, and we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year we are the people that we always hoped we would be.”

Unfortunately, there are Grinches out there though with tight shoes, small hearts and heads that aren’t screwed on just right that hate the Christmas season; those who drum their fingers and growl in their caves that they must find a way to stop Christmas from coming.

Like the burglars who broke into the Hunter’s Horn Pub in Whitby, Ontario and stole a donation jug containing approximately $8,000 raised by pub regulars for a party for 32 local children then slunk to the icebox and took the Whos' feast! They took the Who-pudding and took the roast beast! Or the crooks that lifted more than 50 grand in electronic equipment and other gifts including pop guns, bicycles, roller skates, drums, checkerboards, tricycles, popcorn, and plums from the Atlanta Empty Stocking Fund, a charity that serves more than 40,000 underprivileged children.

From the top of Mt. Crumpet or from the fold-out couches of their squalid one-bedroom studio apartments, I imagine these Grinches put their hands to their ears expecting to hear all the Whos down in Whoville, the kids in Ontario and the children of Atlanta cry BOO-HOO. Yet the sound rising over the snow wasn’t sad, it was the Hunter’s Horn Pub regulars along with Whitby community members and local businesses responding to the theft by raising more money that was stolen in the first place. It was the people of Atlanta, a local radio station hosting a 50-hour marathon and a retail food chain that initiated a 4-day campaign collecting more than triple the value of the items stolen.

The sound was the spirit of Christmas and I’m with Frank Cross on this one. For a few weeks our hearts grow three-sizes and we are all the people we always hoped we would be. It’s why even when the Salvation Army Bell Ringers set up in front of every Target, shopping center entrance, post office, and strip mall deafen us with their incessant clanging we still dig deep into our pockets for whatever extra change lies within. It’s also why when low-life scumbags, who most certainly do things with their dogs besides dress them up like reindeer, try to steal Christmas from children we come together as a community, sing a chorus of Da-Who Dorays Fa-Who Forays and make sure Christmas comes just the same.

As for the thieves, I hope they all choke on bamboozles and plunkers.

Charities Checking Toy Donations for Recalls

Karen Murphy — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 15:04:00 GMT

U.S. charities like Toys for Tots, the Salvation Army, and Goodwill are working overtime to check toy donations for dangerous recalled toys. That is, if they're accepting toy donations at all: Goodwill stores and Salvation Army stores in a number of places across the country are simply choosing not to deal with the problem at all due to staff limitations or choices about culpability.

You weren't considering foisting off that Easy-Bake Oven, Lead Version Dora, Thomas the Lead Engine, or Aqua-Dots Psychadelia Set on a charity, were you? Good. Didn't think so.

But apparently, many people are. Perhaps unintentionally, but the result is the same: charities staff are having to double-check incoming toys against an ever-growing long list of recalled toys. Goodwill has always had a policy of checking toys against recall lists, but obviously that list is much longer now.

Which means that the charities have fewer resources to devote to other things that matter.