Task: Bid for gifts with every $10 you donate
Effort level: Minimal
Investment: $10 or more
Who: Anyone
This is to benefit the United Nations' World Food Programme and more specifically, their school feeding program in Lesotho, which provides breakfast and lunch to primary school children. Several food bloggers are offering gifts that you can bid for with every $10 that you donate. These amazing gifts range from cooking classes to cookware to dinners etc...
1)Visit this Master list site, browse and choose your gift(s) (eg. UW14: Dinner for 6 at Contigo in SF).
2)Visit this Donation site to donate.
3)Every $10 you donate buys you 1 chance to bid for a gift
4)Enter "number of tickets" x "prize code".(eg. 1xUW14)
5)Check on Chez Pim on January 12th for the results.
UPDATE: Results will be available at Chez Pim on Jan 15th (due to technical difficulties) and $62,206.86 was raised.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Microlending: Invest in the future
Task: Lend small amounts to aid entrepreneur's.
Effort level: Minimal
Investment: Money
Who: Anyone
Mohammed Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2006 for his application of microfinancing to help aid the poor in Bangladesh. Kiva is the first website that enables people like us to lend to those in need in an effort to alleviate poverty. The concept follows the idea - "Give a man a fish and you feed him for one day; Give him a fishing rod and he will feed himself for a lifetime".
Very easy. Visit their site, search for a project and donate $25 or more. The money is distributed through their partners to the borrower who uses it to start their business. As their business takes shape, they return the money. Then hopefully you re-invest this money in another business and the cycle goes on..So, what do you have to lose?
My family is currently deciding the business we want to invest in this Christmas..
Effort level: Minimal
Investment: Money
Who: Anyone
Mohammed Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2006 for his application of microfinancing to help aid the poor in Bangladesh. Kiva is the first website that enables people like us to lend to those in need in an effort to alleviate poverty. The concept follows the idea - "Give a man a fish and you feed him for one day; Give him a fishing rod and he will feed himself for a lifetime".
Very easy. Visit their site, search for a project and donate $25 or more. The money is distributed through their partners to the borrower who uses it to start their business. As their business takes shape, they return the money. Then hopefully you re-invest this money in another business and the cycle goes on..So, what do you have to lose?
My family is currently deciding the business we want to invest in this Christmas..
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Volunteer Spotlight : Jayant finds his footing.
Since this is a site that encourages volunteer work, I thought it would be interesting to follow some of their work. To kick start this feature allow me to introduce Jayant K., a smart, funny, charming scientist and most importantly a very good friend of ours.
I started volunteering with NY Cares because of a girl I was interested in, who ladled up the gravy on Saturday mornings at the food kitchen in the basement of St. John the Divine. I thought that volunteering would be a way to do some good while chatting her up. Win-win. Well a couple of outings and a few servings later her interest in me cooled. But I still continued volunteering. Loose-win works just as well. After the food kitchen I tried my hand at different projects sponsored by NY Cares, like painting taxi-cab decals with kids (remember the Garden in Transit thing? So many Dow Jones points ago!), to taking school kids to the Bronx Botanical garden. During the field trip to the garden all the volunteers were not-so-subtly competing to be the coolest adult. I won that one hands down, by locating the Venus fly-trap. The kids loved me after that, though I must say that we were all disappointed by how small the Venus fly-trap was, just about big enough to trap a fly actually.
I volunteered for other random projects as well but there is a mad scramble online to register for the most exciting ones and after a while of trying to be the first one to scoop the most fun project I decided instead to volunteer for an undertaking where my skills were actually in demand. And that is how I started driving the food-truck. Three food-trucks leave every evening from St. Bartholomew's church with 200 meals and 4 volunteers each; white vans with blue bold lettering 'Coalition for the Homeless.' I drive one of these hulking monstrosities on alternate Saturdays through our city's crowded streets. Having grown up in Mumbai, driving in New York came very easily to me. And I am quite expressive with the horn, an ancient Indian instrument that I have perfected in New York. From the short toot -lets go Gramps-, to the longer more incredulous -Are you kidding me? I am the one in a truck- I use them all.
Over the last year I have gotten to know quite a few of the homeless people in our city. The first time I volunteered with the Coalition, I met Fast Frank. Polite, chatty, and always waiting near the Sony building for the food truck to stop by at its appointed time in the evening. We hand out sandwiches, milk, fruit, and juice. One of each, to each person in line. Handing out seconds requires making a judgment call. The number of homeless people who show up vary widely depending on the time of the month, the weather, and lately the economic condition. But Fast Frank never asks for seconds. He picks up a meal at the Sony building and then we see him again at the stop at the Ferry Terminal waiting patiently in line. How he manages to navigate our city's weekend subway lethargy to beat us to the Terminal every single time I will never be able to tell!
My friends often ask me why I volunteer. First of all there are the usual do-good reasons. And then there is the fact that I have never understood a few things about American life and in increasing order of perplexity they are - Marshmallows, Black Friday, and the Sanctity of Saturday Night. I just find driving the van an interesting outing for a Saturday. And as unfair as is may sound it is an opportunity to see the underbelly of America, the people who are falling through the ever widening cracks of our society.
Not that it is all oh 'why so serious?', there are the occasional moments of tragicomic hilarity. Like the time when I was asked what we were serving and I said we had 'sandwiches, milk, fruits, and juice.' As soon as I said that there was a collective gasp and a minor stampede to get to the head of the line. Apparently they thought that I had said 'shoes' and not 'juice.' Oops.
On these drives I have also met many interesting and unique people, both inside and outside the van. For example, last Christmas eve, while driving the food truck I ran into a picture-perfect family of four - mom, dad, son, and daughter. The Dad was dressed up as Santa and they had a car full of presents - gift-wrapped sweat-shirts, woolen socks and such. Apparently the daughter had made a moving speech at their church asking for donations to help the homeless and she had raised a ground-shaking contribution. The family had spent the weekend shopping and gift-wrapping. They followed us around in their car the whole evening and after we had served our meal they would hand out their gift wrapped presents. A Christmas miracle if there ever was one!
Coalition for the Homeless
NY cares
I started volunteering with NY Cares because of a girl I was interested in, who ladled up the gravy on Saturday mornings at the food kitchen in the basement of St. John the Divine. I thought that volunteering would be a way to do some good while chatting her up. Win-win. Well a couple of outings and a few servings later her interest in me cooled. But I still continued volunteering. Loose-win works just as well. After the food kitchen I tried my hand at different projects sponsored by NY Cares, like painting taxi-cab decals with kids (remember the Garden in Transit thing? So many Dow Jones points ago!), to taking school kids to the Bronx Botanical garden. During the field trip to the garden all the volunteers were not-so-subtly competing to be the coolest adult. I won that one hands down, by locating the Venus fly-trap. The kids loved me after that, though I must say that we were all disappointed by how small the Venus fly-trap was, just about big enough to trap a fly actually.
I volunteered for other random projects as well but there is a mad scramble online to register for the most exciting ones and after a while of trying to be the first one to scoop the most fun project I decided instead to volunteer for an undertaking where my skills were actually in demand. And that is how I started driving the food-truck. Three food-trucks leave every evening from St. Bartholomew's church with 200 meals and 4 volunteers each; white vans with blue bold lettering 'Coalition for the Homeless.' I drive one of these hulking monstrosities on alternate Saturdays through our city's crowded streets. Having grown up in Mumbai, driving in New York came very easily to me. And I am quite expressive with the horn, an ancient Indian instrument that I have perfected in New York. From the short toot -lets go Gramps-, to the longer more incredulous -Are you kidding me? I am the one in a truck- I use them all.
Over the last year I have gotten to know quite a few of the homeless people in our city. The first time I volunteered with the Coalition, I met Fast Frank. Polite, chatty, and always waiting near the Sony building for the food truck to stop by at its appointed time in the evening. We hand out sandwiches, milk, fruit, and juice. One of each, to each person in line. Handing out seconds requires making a judgment call. The number of homeless people who show up vary widely depending on the time of the month, the weather, and lately the economic condition. But Fast Frank never asks for seconds. He picks up a meal at the Sony building and then we see him again at the stop at the Ferry Terminal waiting patiently in line. How he manages to navigate our city's weekend subway lethargy to beat us to the Terminal every single time I will never be able to tell!
My friends often ask me why I volunteer. First of all there are the usual do-good reasons. And then there is the fact that I have never understood a few things about American life and in increasing order of perplexity they are - Marshmallows, Black Friday, and the Sanctity of Saturday Night. I just find driving the van an interesting outing for a Saturday. And as unfair as is may sound it is an opportunity to see the underbelly of America, the people who are falling through the ever widening cracks of our society.
Not that it is all oh 'why so serious?', there are the occasional moments of tragicomic hilarity. Like the time when I was asked what we were serving and I said we had 'sandwiches, milk, fruits, and juice.' As soon as I said that there was a collective gasp and a minor stampede to get to the head of the line. Apparently they thought that I had said 'shoes' and not 'juice.' Oops.
On these drives I have also met many interesting and unique people, both inside and outside the van. For example, last Christmas eve, while driving the food truck I ran into a picture-perfect family of four - mom, dad, son, and daughter. The Dad was dressed up as Santa and they had a car full of presents - gift-wrapped sweat-shirts, woolen socks and such. Apparently the daughter had made a moving speech at their church asking for donations to help the homeless and she had raised a ground-shaking contribution. The family had spent the weekend shopping and gift-wrapping. They followed us around in their car the whole evening and after we had served our meal they would hand out their gift wrapped presents. A Christmas miracle if there ever was one!
Coalition for the Homeless
NY cares
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Help a Hero: Mukhtar Mai
Task: Help a Hero succeed.
Effort level: Depends
Investment: Time or donating books or donating money
Who: Anyone
I was'nt planning a blog entry for today but this story is incredible. Some of you may remember Mukhtar Mai's story from a few years ago (Read here for details). She was gang raped as an 'honor revenge' but fought back in court with incredible bravery despite multiple threats against her. Then she used the compensation money to start the Mukhtar Mai Women's Welfare Organization and through donations (Mercy Corps) now runs 4 schools and provides a haven for other women, while continuing to receive threats. The NY times article highlights how we can help - volunteering at her schools, sending books, donating money to Mercy Corps.
I am a huge believer in the escapism and healing provided by books and am collecting them (English - any kind from kid's to novels) to send to her schools. If you would like to give/send me any of your old books I will find a way to send this to her.
Effort level: Depends
Investment: Time or donating books or donating money
Who: Anyone
I was'nt planning a blog entry for today but this story is incredible. Some of you may remember Mukhtar Mai's story from a few years ago (Read here for details). She was gang raped as an 'honor revenge' but fought back in court with incredible bravery despite multiple threats against her. Then she used the compensation money to start the Mukhtar Mai Women's Welfare Organization and through donations (Mercy Corps) now runs 4 schools and provides a haven for other women, while continuing to receive threats. The NY times article highlights how we can help - volunteering at her schools, sending books, donating money to Mercy Corps.
I am a huge believer in the escapism and healing provided by books and am collecting them (English - any kind from kid's to novels) to send to her schools. If you would like to give/send me any of your old books I will find a way to send this to her.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Kindly comment
So I know you're all very busy but I would really appreciate it, if you could take a minute to comment on:
1) Is this blog useful?
2) How could it be made better?
3) Do you have a topic that you would like to see something on?
4) Would you like to be a guest blogger?
Your time is much appreciated,
You can also email me at trygivingback@gmail.com
1) Is this blog useful?
2) How could it be made better?
3) Do you have a topic that you would like to see something on?
4) Would you like to be a guest blogger?
Your time is much appreciated,
You can also email me at trygivingback@gmail.com
Acts of Kindness
Acts of Kindness is an interesting list of simple things we can do to change or enhance a situation. What would you add to this list?
Next week is Thanksgiving here in the US. We live in one of the wealthiest (maybe wealthiest) zip codes in the world. Yet 4 blocks from where we live is a homeless shelter in need for food donations. This year the charities in the region, that normally depend on generous donations from Wall Street, are scrambling to make up the deficit. As you plan your holiday meals and shopping, how have you decided to give back?
Next week is Thanksgiving here in the US. We live in one of the wealthiest (maybe wealthiest) zip codes in the world. Yet 4 blocks from where we live is a homeless shelter in need for food donations. This year the charities in the region, that normally depend on generous donations from Wall Street, are scrambling to make up the deficit. As you plan your holiday meals and shopping, how have you decided to give back?
Friday, November 14, 2008
Genocide Intervention - Educate & Help
Task: Educate yourself, then help to end genocide.
Effort level: Depends
Investment: Depends
Who: Depends
We've all heard of the atrocities of genocide in Darfur, Congo, Burma, Sri Lanka, etc. and, if you're like me, felt helpless, while the people and situations that perpetrate unspeakable violence against others continue to thrive.
A group of Swarthmore college students began Genocide Intervention to help educate and provide us with opportunities to help. Through a combination of student chapters, grass roots activism and government lobbying we too can join in this fight to save innocent lives. In their words - "Empowering individuals to stand against genocide will build the political will necessary for the international community to recognize its responsibility to protect the victims of genocide and mass atrocities".
Effort level: Depends
Investment: Depends
Who: Depends
We've all heard of the atrocities of genocide in Darfur, Congo, Burma, Sri Lanka, etc. and, if you're like me, felt helpless, while the people and situations that perpetrate unspeakable violence against others continue to thrive.
A group of Swarthmore college students began Genocide Intervention to help educate and provide us with opportunities to help. Through a combination of student chapters, grass roots activism and government lobbying we too can join in this fight to save innocent lives. In their words - "Empowering individuals to stand against genocide will build the political will necessary for the international community to recognize its responsibility to protect the victims of genocide and mass atrocities".
Monday, November 3, 2008
UN Volunteers - Online
Task: Volunteer without leaving your home.
Effort level: Depends
Investment: Time, a little effort
Who: Depends
Can you commit some time and skills, freely, for the benefit of society? Do you have access to email and the internet? Would you rather stay in the comfort of your own home? Here is a solution : UN Online Volunteers . Search by specifying tasks, topics and/or regions and apply to organisations (community-based grassroots organization, national or international NGO, local government or United Nations agency). Once selected, complete task.
Effort level: Depends
Investment: Time, a little effort
Who: Depends
Can you commit some time and skills, freely, for the benefit of society? Do you have access to email and the internet? Would you rather stay in the comfort of your own home? Here is a solution : UN Online Volunteers . Search by specifying tasks, topics and/or regions and apply to organisations (community-based grassroots organization, national or international NGO, local government or United Nations agency). Once selected, complete task.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
TripAdvisor Causes
Task: Help determine where TripAdvisor should donate
Effort level: Super Easy.
Investment: 5 secs.
Who: Anybody old enough to use the internet.
Super easy. Visit Tripadvisor and choose your favorite cause to determine how TripAdvisor should divvy up $1 million dollars.
Effort level: Super Easy.
Investment: 5 secs.
Who: Anybody old enough to use the internet.
Super easy. Visit Tripadvisor and choose your favorite cause to determine how TripAdvisor should divvy up $1 million dollars.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Good Search/Shop : Redirect ad revenues
Task: Use search engine and website to shop at your favourite stores.
Effort level: Super Easy.
Investment: Normal activities.
Who: Anybody old enough to search the internet and/or old enough to shop.
So we all use search engines to navigate the internet. Last year $6 billion was raised through the ad revenues of search engines. Well, Good Search donates a portion of their ad revenue (1 cent) to a charity of your choosing. Yes it is just pennies but for something that requires no effort should we quibble? And how many times do you search in a day?
Now onto shopping. Visit Good Shop, enter your favourite charity and then choose a store from the 700 listed. A percentage of your purchase is then given to your charity. Take a look at their list . The numbers are pretty impressive - shopping at 1-800-flowers results in 5-6% donation, gap 2.8% and ebay gives 25-30% of their revenue. Again just going about your daily life, albeit with a little change..
Effort level: Super Easy.
Investment: Normal activities.
Who: Anybody old enough to search the internet and/or old enough to shop.
So we all use search engines to navigate the internet. Last year $6 billion was raised through the ad revenues of search engines. Well, Good Search donates a portion of their ad revenue (1 cent) to a charity of your choosing. Yes it is just pennies but for something that requires no effort should we quibble? And how many times do you search in a day?
Now onto shopping. Visit Good Shop, enter your favourite charity and then choose a store from the 700 listed. A percentage of your purchase is then given to your charity. Take a look at their list . The numbers are pretty impressive - shopping at 1-800-flowers results in 5-6% donation, gap 2.8% and ebay gives 25-30% of their revenue. Again just going about your daily life, albeit with a little change..
Featured Charity: Free the Children
I hope to occasionally highlight special charities that we can help in the more traditional ways. This is the first charity and I'm sure you will see why.
Free the children was started in 1995 by 12 year old Craig Kielburger and a group of his grade 7 friends after he read about a murdered small Pakistani kid who had been sold into child labor. They have inspired and engaged young children to help other children and have had a remarkable list of successes (Built more than 500 schools, shipped medical supplies worth more than $15 million). They have been recognized by various awards including the 2006 World Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child (Children's Noble Prize). 91 cents of every dollar donated goes directly to programs benefiting children and more than 60% of their donations come from or are raised by youth.
Please forward this to the youth in your life (Get Involved website is built for kids) and help in any way you can.
Free the children was started in 1995 by 12 year old Craig Kielburger and a group of his grade 7 friends after he read about a murdered small Pakistani kid who had been sold into child labor. They have inspired and engaged young children to help other children and have had a remarkable list of successes (Built more than 500 schools, shipped medical supplies worth more than $15 million). They have been recognized by various awards including the 2006 World Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child (Children's Noble Prize). 91 cents of every dollar donated goes directly to programs benefiting children and more than 60% of their donations come from or are raised by youth.
Please forward this to the youth in your life (Get Involved website is built for kids) and help in any way you can.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Eat so they Can - Child poverty
Task: Organize a meal fundraiser to feed children.
Effort level: Involved but can be made easy with the right attitude.
Investment: Party planning time, Money for a meal.
Who: Adults but children would add atmosphere.
So this is as easy as getting your friends together for a meal, except, everybody donates the cost of a meal. Join with thousands around the world in raising money while eating, so those less fortunate than us can eat - Eat so they can.The official dates are Oct 18-19, but according to the administrators we can do this anytime of the year. They (part of the Global Volunteer Network) will even send you the necessary organization materials.If the donations are postmarked by Nov 3rd you can be eligible for a grand prize (Trip to Africa to help distribute the money raised). Details of money distributed are listed on the website. There is no minimum though one should should consider the goal of being profitable. Is'nt this a great reason to get your friends together? And how easy would this be as a potluck? We're hoping to set one up at my school next month..
Effort level: Involved but can be made easy with the right attitude.
Investment: Party planning time, Money for a meal.
Who: Adults but children would add atmosphere.
So this is as easy as getting your friends together for a meal, except, everybody donates the cost of a meal. Join with thousands around the world in raising money while eating, so those less fortunate than us can eat - Eat so they can.The official dates are Oct 18-19, but according to the administrators we can do this anytime of the year. They (part of the Global Volunteer Network) will even send you the necessary organization materials.If the donations are postmarked by Nov 3rd you can be eligible for a grand prize (Trip to Africa to help distribute the money raised). Details of money distributed are listed on the website. There is no minimum though one should should consider the goal of being profitable. Is'nt this a great reason to get your friends together? And how easy would this be as a potluck? We're hoping to set one up at my school next month..
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Hungersite : Click to give food
Task: Click to give food
Effort level: Super Easy (save as homepage).
Investment: A mouse click
Who: Anybody old enough to use the internet.
So this is just too easy and too simple. Simply visit Hungersite
and click once a day so the sponsors of the site can pay for food. You can simply set as your homepage or sign up for a daily reminder email.100% of the advertising money is given to Mercy Corps and Feeding America which then goes to feeding people in over 74 countries. Additionally if you buy any item from their store it will further fund the cause. Do I need to say anything else?
Effort level: Super Easy (save as homepage).
Investment: A mouse click
Who: Anybody old enough to use the internet.
So this is just too easy and too simple. Simply visit Hungersite
and click once a day so the sponsors of the site can pay for food. You can simply set as your homepage or sign up for a daily reminder email.100% of the advertising money is given to Mercy Corps and Feeding America which then goes to feeding people in over 74 countries. Additionally if you buy any item from their store it will further fund the cause. Do I need to say anything else?
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Free Rice : Power of learning
Task: Answer multiple choice questions to donate 20 grains of rice per right answer.
Effort level: Easy (you can always choose the lowest level!).
Investment: Fun time
Who: Anybody old enough to read and use the internet.
So this is a really fun way to engage my competitive streak, my love for learning AND to help feed the hungry - Free Rice. The goal is to answer questions from a range of subjects (art, science, math, language) and for each correct answer you help donate 20 grains of rice. Questions are as simple as matching synonyms, or choosing the grammatically correct sentence.. A running score on the bottom keeps track of how well (or bad) you are doing. You can change levels depending on how much you want to be challenged or your progress can determine the level. I seem to hover between a level of 39 and 45 and on occasion have gone upto to 50!!! And answers that were matched incorrectly are recycled back to encourage learning. Brilliant!
Any time I feel like stopping, the bowl of rice on the side (filling up with grains that I helped donate) eggs me on..And there are all those levels to conquer. Would'nt this be a fun way to practice for the SAT's?
The rice is paid for by the sponsors listed on the bottom of their screen and they are partnered with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the United Nations World Food Program.
Any other fun and useful ideas?
Effort level: Easy (you can always choose the lowest level!).
Investment: Fun time
Who: Anybody old enough to read and use the internet.
So this is a really fun way to engage my competitive streak, my love for learning AND to help feed the hungry - Free Rice. The goal is to answer questions from a range of subjects (art, science, math, language) and for each correct answer you help donate 20 grains of rice. Questions are as simple as matching synonyms, or choosing the grammatically correct sentence.. A running score on the bottom keeps track of how well (or bad) you are doing. You can change levels depending on how much you want to be challenged or your progress can determine the level. I seem to hover between a level of 39 and 45 and on occasion have gone upto to 50!!! And answers that were matched incorrectly are recycled back to encourage learning. Brilliant!
Any time I feel like stopping, the bowl of rice on the side (filling up with grains that I helped donate) eggs me on..And there are all those levels to conquer. Would'nt this be a fun way to practice for the SAT's?
The rice is paid for by the sponsors listed on the bottom of their screen and they are partnered with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the United Nations World Food Program.
Any other fun and useful ideas?
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