Philadelphia Nesties
tracyd21
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.
Charities/Non-Profits
Do you have specific charities to which you contribute/volunteer? Any that you refuse for any particular reason?
I saw an interesting thread on MM or P&CE (I forget which) about charities and it had me thinking that i may be contributing blindly to some organizations.
Just trying to drum up some discussion while my students take tests today 
Re: Charities/Non-Profits
My sister-in-law volunteers with several ladies that she works with/used to work with at the Ronald McDonald House down CHOP. They do it every year, right before Christmas.
It's open 365 days a year, and each night, a different group of volunteers make dinner that night for parents whose children are at CHOP. It's up to the volunteers to come up with the menu, groceries, etc., and it's for approximately 60 people. I believe the actual kitchen can accomodate up to 10 volunteers.
I'd never heard of it before, but it sounds fantastic. We are going to try and get all of the girls in our families together, and volunteer at some point over the summer.
Here's the info.
We give regularly to Philabundance. Habitat for Humanity is also a favorite as my dad used to help build houses for them, as did my cousin.
I also donate annually to the Hemophila Foundation of Greater Florida on behalf of saraandmichael's son, as well as the Lupus Foundation of America on behalf of sweetday - both of them have become good IRL friends of mine.
And we have a membership to the Phila Museum of Art, which does count partially as a charitable contribution.
This year I also gave a shitton of clothes to both The Career Wardrobe and Purple Heart. I am planning to push the non-profit board that I serve on to coordinate an event with Career Wardrobe sometime in the future. We also coordinated with The Seaman's Church of Philadelphia this fall on their Ditty Bag Drive for Seafarers. We are also trying to coordinate maritime career day events this spring for local teens and college students along with the PRPA and St. Joe's who now has a Transportation & Logistics major.
That thing at CHOP sounds neat.
I also think that Planned Parenthood is a great thing to support.
Yeah that's right my name's Yauch!
I donate to the Phoenixville Area Community Services (PACS), the Women's Resource Center in Wayne, and HUP. These three charities are supported through my annual United Way payroll donations. With PACS being in my community, I will also attend events that raise funds for them (like Empty Bowls) and contribute to can drives they have. I also regularly bag up men's/women's clothing and household items and deliver to our local Good Will store.
Most of my donation and fundraising efforts are directed to the National Brain Tumor Society. I am an 8 year brain tumor survivor and got very involved in planning this year's Race for Hope and recruited mr erbur to join me for 2012. I had an opportunity to attend the NBTS Annual Meeting in early November and saw firsthand some of the projects that are funded as a result of my work.
As an avid runner, I rarely turn down a local 5K for charity (especially if it is in my community). Also, many of my running friends will solicit donations for their own personal causes--MS Society, Breast Cancer, local home and school associations--and I try to give what I can.
I have found charitynavigator.org to be a great resource to evaluate charities and their operations.
eta: one that I will probably never support is WHYY. The percentage of each donation that contributes to the salaries of the executive director is too high IMO.
DH and I adopt a child at Christmas every year through a local parish. We buy him/her clothes and toys. It's one of our favorite things to do.
I donate to the Thomas Jerome House every year. It's a non-profit started by a friend and named after another very good friend who was shot in the head in Iraq and left blind with a traumatic brain injury. The TJ House organization has a goal to build long-term residential facilities for veterans living with TBIs.
I also tend to run a lot of 5K races for causes I support, and donate to friends who also participate in similar events.
Through my school, I volunteer at Home of the Sparrow and help spruce up their group home.
I really want to volunteer at a soup kitchen one of these days.
We give annually to Heifer International - a humanitarian assistance organization that works to end world hunger and protect the earth. Through livestock, training and passing on the gift, Heifer has helped 8.5 million families in more than 125 countries improve their quality of life and move toward greater self-reliance. Heifer helps build strong communities because each project participant agrees to pass on the gift of animal offspring, training, or skills to another family in need.
We also give annually to the ASPCA and the Doberman rescue group that we adoped our dog from.
#1 12.11.11
#2 10.23.13 EDD
We don't give as much as I'd like to, but we do give some money (and supplies) to the greyhound rescue where we adopted our dog.
We've also donated to the Pennsylvania Hospital NICU and CHOP's Seashore House (it's the center for childhood communication).
we donate to a few places- alex's lemonade stand (childhood cancer), the hutch project (hospice and pallitative care), and our respective high school and college rowing teams.
we have recently started to donate to philadelphia city rowing through the work that one of our friends does there.
we also do the adopt-a-kid for the holidays thing at church.
one of my all time favorite volunteer activities is greeting the ww2 vets at reagan airport when they come into town to visit their memorial. it is heartwarming and makes me feel good for the rest of the day. the range of emotion that these men display is unbelievable. there have been at least 10 guys who shake ds's little hand and say that they hope he never has to go to war/see what they saw/experience combat. the organization is called honor flights and i wish i had more time to work with them.
Support center for the child advocate- volunteer as an attorney and donate
Paws
Philabundance
Autism speaks