The Red Cross is also notorious for misappropriating funds.

Paul I would find a local charity to donate to. More of a chance your money will do some direct and immediate help.

donations are being accepted for the Giavanna Kersulis
Scholarship at San Diego State University.

Checks are made payable to "The Campanile Foundation" and sent to:

Dr. Marian Liebowitz, Chair, Scholarship Committee
School of Music and Dance
San Diego State University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92182-7902

I know nothing about charities and which are good to donate to. Most of my donations go to the Mashantuckett Pequots and Mohegans of southeastern Connecticut.

Doesn\'t surprise me one bit.

Also notorious for throwing away pints and pints of blood at a time because they don\'t get it to where it needs to go fast enough/don\'t follow the correct procedure and end up having to pitch it. I still give them my blood every 8 weeks though. When I remember. I figure they should get it since it is such mighty blood.

Do you get paid ?

I always see folks saying you can get paid to donate blood.

I have a strange fear of needles. Not sure where it comes from tho.

"I know all that and I am. I\'m getting rid of a nice chunk of my morgage with a large principle only payment amongst some other things, and I will be saving also. The mortgage payment will save me more than anything else ever would. Eitherway, let\'s just say there is more than enough to give to charity after all of that. I\'m not talking tons, but more than enough. Regardless (like how I used the right word there Jocelyn? ) though, it was money I was not expecting which to me means automatically a portion of it should go to charities. It\'s just a question of how much and to whom."


That is really cool. congrats.

We have been pretty charitable this past 12 months or so. Kim donated her car to American Cancer Society. My old car is going to them as well. And we have been dropping clothes off at the local drop point. It is nice to know that they might be able to do something with the stuff instead of us just throwing it away

I think you should buy a boat.

Then throw a big party in international waters where we can gamble on monkey knife fights.....

Do you get paid ?

I always see folks saying you can get paid to donate blood.

Nope. Not sure how I would go about doing that.

I can get paid for Plasma Apheresis, but I have only done that once. Left massive welts on both of my arms. I\'m going to stick to regular blood donation.

re: sierra club~ if you know what the sierra club supports, then you know what their lobbyists are supporting. ergo, if you support what sierra is doing, then give them your money, since trying to make any sort of non-local environmental change without lobbyists is simply impossible. its not like they are hiring lobbyists who then go out and do whatever they like. and frankly, a national charity *without* a lobbyist/s is not one i\'d have anything to do with, since no matter what, they aren\'t going to be able to influence law. hell, any local chairty without a state level lobbyist is a waste of money, too, unless they are just collecting and redistributing money/items and not actually trying to make a change.

that being said, local charities are generally preferable, as their admin costs are usually lower and thus more money actually goes to what you want it to go to, not just salaries and whatnot.

fair enough. i did some work for them when i was in politics and i found them to be one of the few places that actually could change/push agendas at the capital. no, they didn\'t get people to go to smithfield and clean up the stream, but they did get smithfield hams (pretty much any \'virginia ham\' you\'ve ever had at xmas) tons of negative publicity, fined millions of dollars and forced them to change their waste dumping practices as a result. now, things are growing in that stream again with no fear of it being re-polluted. and everything - fish, animal, bird, plant, everything- in that stream had died off and still would be gone if they hadn\'t. to me, that\'s much more profound than folks sending a few days working clean up, for instance.  not more immediate, but more lasting.

however, since there are SOME aspects that you don\'t agree with, then certainly don\'t support them financially. as you alluded, you can\'t tell them where and how to spend your money. there are always other ways to support and get done what you want!

i figured i\'d better own up... :lol: