The MomSpeak

Along with ever rising gas prices, the price of milk is headed for the stratosphere, salaries seem to be shrinking, credit card balances rising - let’s not talk about keeping our kids in clothes. Still, even as we struggle and squeak the budget til it screams, it’s hard to ignore others who have far less than we do and suffer from far bigger troubles. We want to give back, especially to teach our children the value of thinking about others, but most of us have as little time as we do extra money. What to do?

The internet has made giving easy and inexpensive, with sites such as www.KIVA.org , which lets you make small business loans to people all over the world who want to start a business but need help. You can donate as little as $25.00 to someone you choose from an array of profiles. Best of all, the loan is repaid once the business gets underway. Heifer International (www.heifer.org) is another terrific site also dedicated to helping people help themselves out of poverty.  For as little as $10.00 you and your kids can buy a share of a dairy goat (or pig or sheep), something that will supply a family with several quarts of milk a day or enable them to add protein to their diets and even begin a small dairy or weaving business. Closer to home, www.kitzforkids.org lists organizations all over the country that for $12.00 will get packages of school supplies to kids who can’t afford them. This one’s especially nice right now.  These worthy organizations make giving really easy. But they’ve established a real presence already.  What about the small local programs working hard every day to make a difference without getting much publicity or attention?

Here’s an idea, originated by a San Francisco Bay Area woman, Karen Lassen. Get a group of friends together and each spend a little time discovering an organization or two in your community that does its work under the radar, without recognition. Decide how much each of you can afford to give. Then gather several times a year, choose which organization will get a small windfall, write them a letter thanking them for their work and enclose a check. If you’ve got 8 people, each giving as little as $20 or $25 each time, that’s enough to give a boost to a local food bank or a group that offers new school clothes to kids living in shelters. It’s a chance to gather and bond with like-minded friends and to do some small bit of good in your own part of the world. Karen Lassen calls her group “The Fairy Godmother Society” and would love to start a movement. You can contact her at karenllassen@comcast.net. But even if you just take this idea and reshape it in your own image, it’s a winner. When we’re feeling pinched ourselves, it’s good to remember not just that others are less fortunate, but that there are people out there trying to make things better a little bit at a time and that we can be even a small part of their efforts.