Every October 15, the blogosphere unites to raise awareness about an important issue. Last year: the environment … this year, it’s poverty. I could write some great post about a poor woman in poverty and her struggles to feed her children, keep a roof over their heads and find employment. People who are reading this blog have probably heard those stories time and time again. Instead of hearing another sad story, hopefully, you’re more interested in learning what you can do to help.
That being said, Blog Action Day — the organizing group behind today’s efforts — collected suggestions for their bloggers. Click here to read the full listor check out ones I think anyone can try:
- Eat meatless meals twice a week. Donate that grocery money to a local food bank.
- Make a loan on Kiva, or buy a couple gift certificates and give them away to friends.
- Get a group together to go door-to-door collecting canned foods for your local soup kitchen/shelter.
- Take a homeless person to dinner and actually sit/talk with him. (Side note: My husband has done this and I think it’s an admirable thing to do. THat way, you’re helping them and just throwing money at someone.)
- If you have a musical instrument you no longer use, donate to the still-struggling musicians and students in New Orleans, who are still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. A few great organizations that will accepts musical instruments are Tipitina’s Foundation (www.tipitinasfoundation.org) and The New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund (www.nomrf.org/donations.html).
- Stop drinking Coke and bottled water for a day and save on plastic. Will save a lot of plastic if each of us does it for only one day.
- Check your closet and make sure that anything you have not used last winter is taken to a charitable organization. Ask your friends and neighbors and volunteer to pick up the clothes, launder them and deliver them to those organizations. They will do no good in your closet and a world of good to someone in need.
- Volunteer at a soup kitchen!
- If you have Starbucks, or some other kind of coffee to-go, skip it for an entire week and donate the savings!
- Educate yourself on one aspect of poverty that affects women, whether it’s educating yourself on what’s going on with rape or abortion legislation in your own local area, or finding out what you can do to help women in other countries attain the basic human rights they deserve, by doing research on organisations that help women and contributing to those organisations in some way.
Now, get to work!