D.C. Area Nesties
victoria1212
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Charitable Giving?
what are you doing charitable giving wise this holiday season? (I am asking because I am looking for some good ideas).
Through work, I am doing the boxes of items for SOME. And, we do a food drive all year.
I think DD is too young to get the concept but I would like to make it part of a holiday tradition to get gifts for a child her age.
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Re: Charitable Giving?
we always buy a bunch of things for toys for tots. my husband's company collects & it's kind of a big deal for them, especially b/c the guy who started the drive at his company received TfT a few years when he was little. it's really fun and everyone gets excited to see how much they can collect.
otherwise, we give to our standing charities (my husband donates to local biking org & i've been doing npr & pbs lately b/c of funding worries & sometimes doorways for women), but that doesn't always happen at the end of the year. eta: meaning that we sometimes give during the year & sometimes wait to the end, it just depends on cash flow and/or forgetting
Through work we've adopted a local shelter and we do the stockings and wishlists for the kids there. Then, if we have leftover $$ we pay for bigger ticket items they can't afford but need.
Personally, I give money to St. Jude and my H gives money to YouthAIDS. Most of that goes through alumni giving programs from our respective greek orgs, but I also write a separate check to St. Jude around the holidays. We also give money to our alma mater's scholarship fund during their annual giving push, which is usually in April.
Stand up for something you believe in.
My mom always got us Angel Tree kids to buy stuff for. Without knowing how old your kid is, I'd still say starting something like this is wonderful for a kid.
If you have pets, donating items to a local shelter is nice too. They usually have lists on their websites. (Alexandria does.)
The concept of not receiving the item a child picks out at the store is a great life lesson.
I always give to my alma mater at this time of year. We also have a small independent radio station we give to each year, because we value their programming (WMVY if anyone is curious.)
We also keep our eye out for anything else that captures our interest. In the past, we've donated to the rescue organization we adopted our dog from, but this year I think we might give to the ASPCA's Operation Baghdad Pups, which brings over animals that service members have bonded with from Iraq and Afghanistan.
My parents did this with me and my siblings. It's a great tradition! We all still do it, too.
Aside from the Angel Tree, we donate to different animal charities. I'm really interested in the cep mentioned - i'm going to look into that for this year.
We make the rockin' world go 'round.
Don't watch the videos on their site at work, unless you want to be a crying mess at your desk.
We sponsor a family in India year round for the charity that my father founded a million years ago, and we try to save throughout the year to send a special donation during the holidays so that they can buy a pregnant buffalo, or a goat, or a loom or something that they can make $$ off of throughout the year.
We also donate to Puppies Behind Bars and the MoCo Humane Society throughout the year, and send extra at the holidays. I try to donate to any of the canned good drives when I see them, esp at the stores, it is so much easier to buy extra than to actually remember to bring something somewhere, and we do a donation to the American Cancer Society every year as well.
I do like the idea of sponsoring all year. Do you mind posting or PMing the non-profit you go through?
The family in India that we sponsor is through a Catholic non-profit called the Franciscan Family Apostolate. The website is www.openhearts.org. Disclaimer: my dad is the founder and President of the charity. They do amazing work - I'm really proud of him and his work!
love these ideas!
at my office, we work through Horton's Kids http://www.hortonskids.org/. We used to do Angel Tree there, but the Salvation Army's policy against gays was not in line with my organization's (or own) beliefs.
"What is a week-end?"
If you're looking for ideas Charity Navigator, Give Well and GuideStar are all pretty decent databases. You can (I believe on all three), list the type of cause you're intersted in and it can give you a listing of nonprofits that try to meet those needs.
Personally DH and I give to our local church, a local community service group, both the schools we graduated from and a couple other groups throughout the year (we actually don't do much giving during the holidays).
If you want something that can be more involved then those 'pull a name off a tree' thingys you find at grocery stores that include info on the kid so you can buy age/gender appropriate toys would engage kids. Also - lots of groups are doing "wish list" type Christmas campaigns where you can pick a specific thing to "buy" them.