I need Christmas help!

Family members are asking me what I want for Christmas but I don't really want anything. I have all the materialistic crap I could ever want/need so I want to give a list of charities instead this year. I never realized how limited my own charity list is until now so this is where you come in. I want interesting ideas.

DNC, NOW, Amnesty, Democracy For America, Planned Parenthood, and ACLU are already on my list. Let me know what else I should add.

most of my relatives are out of town, would they still be able to donate to local shelters? I'll have to make some phone calls tomorrow to find out.

or foundation of sorts this time of year. I find the information near the front of the paper. Another good idea is to donate to a battered woman's shelter or call a nearby prison to donate toys/cash for the kids of inmates.

The idea of helping out a needy family sounds wonderful.

if you donate to, because I know the lady that started it. Her name is Binh (pronounced Bing) and she is from Vietnam originally. She survived the war with a few injuries, the only permanent one being the loss of hearing in one ear from bombs exploding close to her. Anyway she's lived here for 22 years and about eight years ago went back to Vietnam to visit and saw that literally hundreds of children were living on the streets. Girls as little as seven or eight were being sold as prostitutes. So she went to work. She took her entire paycheck from her job here and used it to build orphanages all across Vietnam and Cambodia. To make a long story short she started this charity and has somewhere close to 5,000 orphans living in her orphanages that, aside from donations, she single handedly has supported. She fights to get hospitals built and to get abandoned babies surgeries or medicines they need. It would take a while to write down all of the amazing things I've seen her do, but she is truly one of those really, really rare individuals that is doing everything in her power to make a difference.

Here's the url.
http://www.childrenofpeace.org/

Just a thought. :)

What a noble cause! So how did you meet Binh? She sounds like an absolute saint.

I sat in a cube next to hers and would hear all of her stories as she was doing these amazing things. One day when I have the means I want to make a trip with her and help out. She organizes these teams of Doctors from the U.S. to voluntarily go into these remote regions of Vietnam and provide medical care to thousands of people that wouldn't normally have any access. She really has to fight too because there is a lot of "baby selling" that happens over there and she has to work really hard to keep her children safe. She absolutely loves children and literally gives the clothes off her back to help them.
I hope that I'm eventually in a position where I can adopt a child from there.

"While you are mulling over Jennifer's advice, get in practice by making a donation to the Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City. Last year the clinic, which charges on a sliding scale in order to make quality reproductive healthcare available to all, was able to subsidize $230,000 worth of patient services. This year, it's having trouble meeting that goal, because it incurred heavy legal expenses to get an injunction against an antiabortion extremist who threatened murder and because it faces a big insurance rise (reason: It's an abortion clinic). To make a donation, go to www.emmagoldman.com or call (800) 848-7684. You'll be helping women and supporting feminist activism--and in a red state, too. "

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041220&s=pollitt

the Trichotillomania Learning Center. It's a funny word, but a serious disease. http://www.trich.org/home/

My brother almost died from it when I was young. He got a terrible infection. I know its not something people think is serious, but it really can be.

www.charitynavigator.org

It'll let you search by location, cause, etc. It also provide financial info for charities and ranks them. Very intersting stuff.

Paralysis Foundation

you might also check out: http://www.justgive.org/index.html huge list of charities...(can sort by category)