Giving Back

Glamour Magazine this month had an article about giving back. They gave 31 things, I'm going to pick a few to share with you!! For the full list, pick up the December 2007 issue of Glamour!!

• Buy a holiday turkey for a family in Baton Rouge (home to thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees) for $25 at brfoodbank.org
• Support the troops with warm socks, deodorant, Chees-Its. Find their wish lists at anysoldier.com
• Donate new blankets to kids in homeless shelters at projectnightnight.org
• Buy funky gifts at thrift shops that give back, such as Out of the Closet; sales help support the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. For locations, see outofthecloset.org
• Before you shop online, go to goodshop.com. Then buy from participating retailers and the site donates a portion of your purchase to the charity of your choice.
• Help protects half an acre of rain forest in South and Central America with a $25 donation at rainforestalliance.org
• Donate old cell phones to victims of domestic violence for emergencies (go to ncadv.org and click "donate")
• Vaccinate 50 people around the world against deadly diseases such as meningitis, measles or polio with a $50 donation at doctorswithoutborders.org
• Provide a month of care for a woman or child rescued from sexual slavery for just $30 at sharedhope.org
• Get friends involved. To find group volunteer projects, go to thevolunteerfamily.com
• Clean out your closet! Then donate old glasses (neweyesfortheneedy.org), shoes (shareyoursoles.org) and even wedding gowns (makingmemories.org)
• Find projects that help people in your very own zip codes at dosomething.org
• Make a $10 donation to freethechildren.org and a special matching-funds program will turn it into $100 worth of medical supplies for kids around the world.
• Mentor an at-risk teen online at icouldbe.org
• Help an aspiring student pay for college at scholarshipamerica.org
• Send a DVD or video game to hospital-bound kids via childsplaycharity.org
• Staying home for the holidays? Donate frequent-flier miles to injured soldiers' families at heromiles.org
• Tutor a future J.K. Rowling at 826national.org
• Train your pooch to be a therapy dog for nursing homes and hospitals at tdi-dog.org
• Sell gifts you don't need through eBay's Giving Works program (givingworks.ebay.com), which earmarks a percentage of sales for the charities of your choice.
• Give to donorschoose.org; a small donation can help create cozy reading nooks for underfunded classrooms
• Upgrade your laptop; worldcomputerexchange.org will send your old one to a child in one of 61 countries