Attn Members: I'd like to start discussion of a forum wide charity drive. I think we have enough good people on this forum who could make an impact for a deserving charity. This is open to suggestion and discussion and I'd like to get a lot of suggestions from those of us who are able to provide goods/services that may be potentialy income earning for this project. See if you can follow what I mean...

Charities I have been thinking about:
1. Natalie Holloway Fund (local high school girl in aruba)

2. AER (army emergency relief) - This fund provides commanders with a pool of funds with which to provide their units with fresh equipment, cover family expenses etc. Their moto "Helping the army take care of their own"

3. ASPCA (American Society fro prevention of cruelty to animals) Nuff said. My wife and I are animal lovers and donate a tithe every month to the ASPCA. Animals cannot take care of themselves and the ASPCA is only funded by private donations.

4. LAF (lance armstrong foundation) Doesn't need explaining. Multi-faced cancer research and coping fund. Funds are divided by 5-6 current Cancer centers ranging from research to treatment to counsiling. All-in-one cancer donation

5. CAP (christian Appalachian Fund) This is a project that hits close to home with me. Growing up in the church I attended this program every summer. My wifes family is originally from this area. Its a non-biased christian organization building homes and enhacing lives in the Appalachian mountains (black belt). They also offer counsiling and help families get back on their feet. Think "habitat for humanity" only much more severe. These people are practically homeless and have no education, no jobs, no future. CAP tries to provide hope.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~

I know there are litteraly thousands of deserving charities out there. I only mentioned these 5 because they are close to me and my family. Feel free to nominate your own. We'll take a vote on one and focus all of our efforts on one. Maybe if this goes over well we can choose another charity at a later date and continue.


WHAT CAN WE DO?!?

Heres where forum participation is SO important. We will need to find people who will be willing to donate products/services that can be sold or auctioned off for the donations. Some of us are in a position where we can provide something for little to no cost that will be acceptable. We can also resort to something as simple as setting up coffee cans with our chairty of choice around our towns. Down south here you can't walk into a store without seeing a bucket. These are very popular and require nothing more than 15 minutes of work and follow up vists to check on them.

Any ideas? I've never tried to orgnaize a big spiel like this before.....well I did last winter when I asked for blanket donations for our local homeless shelter and nothing showed up. That was dissappointing but maybe if we all agree on the charity it will receive more attention.

Please discuss and keep this topic bumped. I'll make it sticky so it doesn't go anywhere. I'm asking everyone to come through with something. It doesn't matter how small or insignificant you may think it is. Every bit helps. If you'd just rather make a simple donation just pm me and we'll work out details.

There is no feeling like impacting someone elses life positively.

 

I'd be somewhat interested in some of these! It would be a great thing to do, I'll certainly keep watching this!

 

Awww...like our own version of the United Way.

 

wow, the outpouring of support is overwhelming......

 

how did i miss this thread... i'd be willing to help

 

then start by offering up suggestions and ideas. thats the point of this thread....work out the details...then we'll start a real "charity drive in progress" thread.

 

I do know of 2 other good charities:
Children's Miracle Network (paid for my wife's facial surgeries)
Ronald McDonald House (helps house familes w/ children in the hospital)

suggestions:
dunno.. auction off car parts? stickers? I would be willing to pay more for something if i knew the profits were helping a charity.

setup a paypal account - everyone just sends the money there, then disperse (sp?) this money to the charities once a month or so?

 

yeah, I was trying to figure out what services/goods our members could donate that could be sold for full profit.

I don't really feel comfortable opening up a seperate paypal account for chairty...that looks real suspect. What I was thinking was maybe we choose a chairty and set up buckets at local retailers....then everyone totals it up and we all send it at once.

 

i don't have anything wrong with setting up buckets at local retailers, but i have seen to many people behind the register pocket some of it.

 

i'm a suscriber of the belief that some money raised for charity is better than none. Besides if someone wants to steal from charity that's THEIR karma to deal with....not mine.

 

I'd be really interested in doing a cruise type deal...like the bike guys always get to do. It would be great if we could get a bunch of mazda owners together to drive for a charity...like toys for tots or whatever it is.

 

the money we'd spend on gas right now would be better donated outright I'd think. Gas/driving is expensive.

 

True.

 

I'm trying to see how we can have the greatest impact without spending a lot of money. Less money going out means more coming in.

I would be willing to donate more money to Dave J. so he could make some more stuff out of vinyl either custom banners, logo's, etc. I'll pay out of my pocket for that if people are interested. I don't really know what else I could make or offer.,

 

show and Shine day.... and place donation boxes around....

in-coroporate like a BBQ to go with it and charge for it... give profits to the charity...

like the WRX Club here did somefin like this: they got like 100 cars all WRX's to rock up.. and took kids who are in hospital etc etc on a cruise... the kids seem to love it and money was raised by sponsors.... sponsors loved this because of the media coverage and forked out alotta money... and the charity did get a huge sum and the kids were very happy

das all i can think of for now hehe... if u have anything to donate have an auction on he day too