Give Yourself

Want to volunteer this holiday season? These organizations allow you to punch in your zip code and find an opportunity close to home:

• The American Red Cross
• America’s Second Harvest
• Home Instead Senior Care
• VolunteerMatch.com

Source: Woman’s Day, December, 2006.

Tags: Volunteer, American Red Cross, America's Second Harvest, charity

A Fear To Give

Humanitarian Aid Charities collecting for Lebanon have run into difficulties collecting in the United States. It’s not that there’s a lack of desire to give, but it turns out there’s a fear to give…apparently, Americans are a little afraid of what their government might have to say if they donate…because after all the NSA is watching and what if you accidently donate to the wrong charity and your name ends up in a database somewhere listing you as a supporter of terrorists? Remember, if you’re doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about.

Some people want to get around that by donating goods, but this complicates matters because it’s expensive to the charities — goods have to be sorted by people which takes time and shipped which also takes time …and also costs the charity money…

Charities prefer that people send money rather than food, medicine or other goods, because in-kind donations force the charities to pay for shipping, delay the arrival of the aid, and saddle relief workers with the task of sorting and distributing items that may not be needed.

The problem, according to relief groups, is that many people who are inclined to write checks for emergency aid and reconstruction in Lebanon are afraid of ending up in some government database of suspected supporters of terrorism.

Arab American leaders say this is one of the unintended consequences of the U.S. government’s crackdown on charities run by Muslims. Though aimed at cutting off illicit funding for terrorist groups, the crackdown has complicated legitimate humanitarian relief efforts in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

“Dozens of people have approached me. They want to help, they want to send money to buy medicine, and they’re afraid of the government reaction to their contribution,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Some do it anyway. They can’t sit idly. But they worry that one day they’ll hear a knock on the door.”

CAIR, which is one of the country’s largest Muslim organizations, reluctantly is encouraging donations of goods, on the grounds that they are better than nothing. Its Web site, http://www.cair-net.org , lists needed items, such as rice, sugar and cooking oil, along with detailed instructions on how to pack and send them.

“We’re forced to go the least effective route, which is sending actual relief supplies, because of the restrictions on, and the problems associated with, sending financial relief to the Middle East,” CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said. “If you send lentils, at least no one can accuse you of supporting terrorism.”

Some other groups, such as the Arab American Institute, are taking the opposite tack, recommending against in-kind donations.

“We’ve been encouraged not to do that by the Lebanese Embassy and others — not to send goods, because it’s inefficient and it takes money to sort it out and decide what to do with it. What’s needed is cash so people on the ground can buy what they need, when they need it,” said James J. Zogby, president of the institute, a Washington-based advocacy group.

[…]

“In the context of the NSA monitoring everything under the sun, people are afraid,” he said, referring to the National Security Agency’s monitoring of international phone calls and e-mails. He added that he has repeatedly urged U.S. officials to publish a list of legitimate charities, to no avail.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. government has shut down three major U.S.-based charities for allegedly funneling support to terrorists, and it has designated more than 40 charities internationally as terrorist financiers. Last week, the Treasury Department barred U.S. citizens from contributing to two more groups: the Philippine and Indonesian branches of the Saudi Arabia-based International Islamic Relief Organization.

Treasury Department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said that the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control maintains a “one-stop shopping” list of banned entities, known as the Specially Designated Nationals List, on its Web site, http://www.treasury.gov/ofac .

But she said the department has declined to produce a list of approved charities in the Middle East “for two reasons: No. 1, any charity that we deemed clean, we could not guarantee that it would always remain so. And No. 2, it would put the government in the position of playing favorites.”

[…]

” United Jewish Communities, an umbrella organization for 155 Jewish charities across the country, announced last week that it will raise at least $300 million in emergency aid for Israel. The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington alone intends to raise $10 million toward that goal.

By comparison, the flow of private U.S. donations for humanitarian aid in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories is a mere trickle, estimated by relief groups at a few million dollars. Donors who fear giving to Muslim charities can contribute to the International Committee of the Red Cross or groups such as CARE and Mercy Corps — large, international relief groups that are the major conduit of such aid.

Laila Al-Qatami, a spokeswoman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said the organization has decided to funnel its Lebanon relief contributions through Mercy Corps, an Oregon-based group that she pointedly noted “is not an Islamic charity.”

But some Muslim groups are intent on proving that they, too, can collect money and distribute it without problems.

Ziad J. Asali, a retired physician in Illinois who heads the American Task Force on Palestine, said his group is giving $20,000 each to Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem and St. Luke’s Hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus. After consulting with the State Department, he said, the task force decided to pay the bills for medical supplies that the hospitals order from their regular suppliers. [“Muslim Charities Say Fear Is Damming Flow of Money” (WashingtonPost.com)]

How free do you feel now? Free to feel as compassionate as you want to whomever you want? You can’t even write a check to help someone without worrying that you might wind up on the wrong side of an interrogation table one day under the current Administration’s game plan…

Tags: Humanitarian Aid, Lebanon, Arab, charity, spying on Americans, Treasury Department, United Jewish Communities, CAIR, Arab American Institute, NSA, International Islamic Relief Organization, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, American Task Force on Palestine, State Department

comments See also in Politics & Causes, In the News, The World, Featured, The Middle East

What To Do With Books You’ve Finished Reading

Over the weekend a friend of mine asked me what she should do with the piles of books she’s finished reading. Apparently selling them on eBay and Amazon hasn’t turned out to be all of that profitable or rewarding for her and I’ve apparently become the expert on what to do with your stuff when you want to get rid of it since I’m no longer the reigning packrat.

So, here’s my recommendations:

• Nursing Homes — Believe it or not, old people do still read. Actually, my grandmother was an avid reader until her death and I was quite horrified by the reading selection available in her nursing home in New Mexico. I can’t recall the exact name of the book I found on her bedstand when I last visited her but I think it was something like “Death of a Hussy”.
• Hospitals — At my last job, when I worked at “the big house” itself, I was always hearing requests for new books for the library. I don’t actually work at “the big house” now, but I imagine it’s the same. When you finish that best seller, someone in the long-term wing would probably be grateful to read it.
• Schools — They have libraries too.
• Local libraries — Duh.
• Our boys overseas — they don’t have Barnes & Nobles in Iraq or Afghanistan and I’m sure they’d appreciate anything you have to send.
• Anyone raising money for anything via some sort of sale.

If you have any other suggestions, please add them to the comments sections

Tags: books, charity

Donating The News

Here’s a niftly little discovery I made.  I called to have my newspaper stopped while I was away and the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram have a program where you can donate your newspaper while you are on vacation to the local schools, including summer schools.  Newspaper subscriptions really aren’t that expensive and really I wouldn’t be saving a whole lot by having them “credit” my account for 2 1/2 weeks.  Besides I really like the idea of contributing to the education system.  In fact, I may have to consider ordering a second subscription when I come back and just donating one subscription straight out now that I know you can do that.   Pretty nifty indeed.

Tags: charity