Season's Givings?

DevanJedi asks: "Many people around the world plan their charitable giving around this time of the year, for religious, tax or other similarly benevolent reasons. As a geek who spends an inordinate amount of time around his computer, I have compiled a list of entities that have made my geek life easier, in the past year. Which other projects does Slashdot believe to be worthy of praise, money, recognition, developer time or general applause?"

Comments

Food banks

[Barkley44]

I find food banks are the best place to donate, especially in food form (instead of cash). Canned foods last well into the new year and many people benefit from the meals they provide - either peopel directly getting the food, or food banks preparing the food. We try to run such events every few months around our area. One time we went to make a large donation and the food bank had just 1 can of food left (for a city of 18,000 people). A lot of people don't realize how much a few $$ worth of food can go towards helping other people out.

Re:Food banks

[Anonymous Coward]

I know in my area, most people forget the food bank collects money. There's always a lot of "Free with food donation" concerts and such, or food drives at the gorcery stores, even on busses, but it never gets mentioned that the food banks need money too.

In addition to the reasons for cash you mentioned above, food banks are often needting to by perishables , such as milk, eggs, bread, meat, cheese and so on, in addition to whatever it's short of at any given time. Money is often invaluable to a food bank.

My annual donation to the food bank is always in cash.

Re:Food banks

[Myself]

And if they're reasonably large, they probably have options with local food stores to buy things at quantity discount. Why would you buy a few cans of food at the per-can price, when they could combine cash donations and get it at the per-pallet price? Furthermore, cash is easily converted into whatever type of food they need at the moment. Giving them specific types means they have to store them up until they have enough of whatever to make a batch of something.

Of course, if you work for a food producer of some sort, it would be huge if you could help arrange a deal with your local food bank.

Re:Food banks

[everettpf3]

Maybe you should just stop eating altogether

Be unselfish

[ishmalius]

Maybe you address this in your article, but the server has turned to molten metal. So ignore this if I have it wrong, but: They made your life better? Whatever happened to altruism?

I, for one, am giving to the Salvation Army. During the hurricanes, they did an enormous amount of thankless work. They did not receive the publicity of the Red Cross, but as is typical, they are the first to arrive and the last to leave. They work endless hours, seemingly tirelessly, and never lose their smiles. They shun self-promotion. These are truly wonderful people.

Re:Be unselfish

[Secrity]

Would you feel the same way if the public school wanted it's students to volunteer for the Westboro Baptist Church, the Black Ministerial Alliance, or Focus on the Family instead of the Salvation Army?

Re:Be unselfish

[Caspian]

A lot of people who would never knowingly help a church are unaware that the SA is, in fact, one.

Re:Be unselfish

[mj2k]

it is individuals such as yourself that give agnostics/atheists a bad name... the salvation army, just like the red cross, does a lot of good, and helps many people. I don't see any athiest organizations on the scale of the salvation army that exist, if so, please correct me. The salvation army doesn't walk up to you after a disaster and devise some "proselytise for aid" scheme, where you either convert or they walk away... They go out there, help people, and tell people why they are doing that(i.e. spreading the gospel or something of that nature), if the people they help are positively impressed by this, and drawn to go to church after this, is this dishonest? in what way does this put them in the wrong?

Re:Be unselfish

[inkey string]

And I don't give a damn. If more churches acted like the SA (shunning promotion, attempting to illustrate the benefit of religion through selfless acts rather than shameless guilting) I would be a lot less leery of organized religion in general.

Don't hate religion. There isn't anything terribly wrong with believing in a power beyond one's self and brotherhood with your fellow man. Hate the corruption and human fallibility that has wound tight over the millenia with the threads of innocent belief.

Re:Charitable giving

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't have said it better myself!

What the hell is the point of this entire post? If you want to be charitable, give to a charity that will feed the hungry or shelter the homeless! Giving old hardrives to the (relatively) well-off is not charity - it's just getting rid of crap you don't want anymore.

Re:Charitable giving

[ucblockhead]

Agreed! In fact, I'd say that giving money is the worst option. When you give time, you help directly, with nothing skimmed off the top.

Instead of stuff, give time!

[PurifyYourMind]

Why not volunteer at a school in a low income neighborhood? I'm sure young people would love to have an expert computer resource at their disposal. And what better audience for free/open source ideas?

Ubuntu

[Risen888]

Whether it's your cup of tea or not, at this moment, no one but no one is building the Linux user base like these guys. The inroads they've been making into what is historically a Microsoft market of end-users are phenominal, and that helps everyone.

And don't get me wrong, they'll take your money with smiles on their faces and love in their hearts, but what they'd really love for Christmas is a little of your time and talent.

Re:Charitable giving

[penguin121]

>Agreed! In fact, I'd say that giving money is the worst option. When you give time, you help directly, with nothing skimmed off the top.

While giving money certainly isn't the only option or the best option necessarily, that doesn't make it the worst option. Many charities require a combination of material donations, such as money, as well as donations of time through volunteering to be sucessful. Consider something like a soup kitchen. Its true that if it only gets material donations, it won't be effective without volunteers to prepare and distribute them. However, it won't be effective either if it only has volunteers without any food to distribute. The point of charity is to give what you can to help those in need. A person lacking free time that gives money is not exercising a worse option than someone else lacking money that gives their time, and neither is the reverse true. To try and form a pecking order out of the different types of charitable giving is to lose sight of the bigger picture.

Helping the needy

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that this guy is encouraging us to give money, time, etc. to groups that have been beneficial to us during the past year.

There's nothing wrong with that. Giving to charities is a great thing, and certainly, the guy is free to give to whomever he wants. But I think it is very important also to help people based on how great their need is, rather than what they have done for us.

There are people suffering from AIDS, violenceI don't know about this..., and famine (especially in Africa) who need our help. In Western countries, there are homeless people, drug addicts, prisoners, the elderly. These are all people who deserve respect, love, and human dignity.

It is fine to give to GNOME et. al., but when you do that, please remember the less fortunate as well.

Give the right amount to the right places

[alphorn]

Think about how many Africans will die (malnourishment, diseases) because you use your "charity" budget on stuff that makes your life better.

Think about exactly why you would be outraged if millions of people died of hunger or cold (think Pakistan) in your country, yet this is not such a big deal if it happens far enough away.

Think about how much suffering could be prevented if you gave 10% of your income, how little suffering that would cause you, and why you (like most people) consider it okay to give much less than that.

International Red Cross
Médécins sans frontières
UN World Food Programme

Project Gutenberg

[CaptKilljoy]

Project Gutenberg is my charity of choice. What could be greater than giving the world access to the collected works of the worlds great thinkers and writers?

faces...

[YesIAmAScript]

So the faces you see get money, eh?

The guy who makes sure the traffic lights on the way to work don't go green both ways and gets you killed gets nothing?

I don't mean to sound like Mr. Pink here, but this is a great example of how baffling the rules for who gets a gratuity are.

Perhaps you could ask yourself, if I'm only giving it to people I see and not the most deserving regardless, who am I really doing it for?