Great Charities

Please support charities that help people in financial need, here are a few of our favorites...

American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund

America's Second Harvest Food Bank Network

Habitat for Humanity

Samaritans Purse

Save the Children

Salvation Army

The United Way

UNICEF

You can also search Google for your local charity organizations...

To help you get started, I've linked the Google search pages below for your local food banks, rescue missions, etc... all you need to do is add your city and/or state to the search box on Google if you don't see your local office listed.

Food Bank

Rescue Mission

Salvation Army - Goodwill

Christmas Shoebox Ministry

Pregnancy Help Centers

Web sites and search engines may sometimes contain advertising or links for false charities, if you're unsure of a particular charity organization that you'd like to support please contact us and we'll help you do some investigating to make sure they're legitimate! One thing you can do is visit the main charity site and not a "directory," or advertised link.

Also, here is another very important charity that is special to us, please support them whenever you can!

March of Dimes

If you have a favorite charity that helps people in financial need please send us a link and tell us why it's your favorite! Contact Editor

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Instead of having a garage sale or selling items that you no longer need on ebay, please consider donating them to your local charities....

Remember, NO DONATION IS TOO SMALL!!!

"It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Acts 20:35 (NIV)

Help wiithout Money: Creative Ways to Support Charitable Giving

There seems to be an assumption that the only way that people can help a charitable cause is by donating money. While these organizations are almost always in need of extra cash, there are still ways that you can help without spending any money.

Donate Your Time: While this may seem obviously to a lot of people, many don’t ever consider this option. There are all types of functions that need to be done to keep the charity going and most would love any volunteer help they can get. Simply call the charity and ask if there is something that you can do to help out.

Donate Your Skills: Less obvious to many is that you may be able to donate a skill that you have to the charity. I have a good friend that helps one small charity that he likes help keep their books in order since he is an accountant. I had a friend in college who created art work for free to help campaigns a local charity ran. I have another friend who is a handyman that does all the repairs a local charity needs on their building for no cost. If you have a skill, ask the charity if they could use it.

Donate By Clicking: There are a number of websites that receive money by you simply clicking on a button. When you do, advertisers are displayed and they pay a certain amount for each click. You can find a large list of charities that make money this way at Charity Click Donation

Place The Charity In Your Signature: Place the website address to the charity in the signature of your emails (this will make it show up at the bot om of every email you send out). If you participate in a number of online forums, place a link to the charity in your signature that will show up each time that you post on those forums. Be sure to read the forum rules before doing this as some o not allow it, but this is a great way for others to learn about the charity, especially if you are active and well liked in the community.

Make A Video: If you have a digital movie camera, consider making a video detailing why you like the charity and load it up to a shared video site like youtubewhere others can see it.

Get A Credit Card: More and more charities are offering branded credit cards. If you use these credit cards, the charity gets a small percentage back on the amount you spend (just like a cash back card, but the cash goes to the charity instead of you). Just make sure to pay off your balance each month.

Create A T-Shirt: if you need a basic T-shirt for working out or other activity, consider making your own that advertises the charity instead of getting a plain T-shirt at your local clothes shop. Sites like cafe press will allow you to create your own T-shirt that can help publicize your favorite charity.

Sell Goods For Charity: If you have old stuff lying around the house, consider selling it on eBay and having the income generated go to the charity of your choice. eBay has a system that allows you to do this called Giving Works. Not only do you help the charity with cash, you can still deduct the amount donated off your taxes.

Donate Food You Get For Free: here are a lot of websites on the Internet that can teach you how to greatly reduce the cost of buying food such as Grocery Coupon Guide. if you follow the steps, what you will find is that sometimes you can get food for free. If it is food that you wouldn’t normally use yourself, still get it for free and donate it to a local charity.

Address Labels: If you give to certain charities, they will send you address labels and other small items to try and get you to donate each year. Instead of purchasing a bunch of address labels for $10 through the Internet, I simply made a $10 donation to one of my favorite charities. This way I’m not spending any more money than I would have been, but the $10 goes to charity rather than to a printing company. Now I get all the address labels I need while giving a donation to the charity.

With a bit of creativity, there are a lot of ways that you can help your favorite charity without spending a lot of money.

Go Green with Charities!

A couple of well-known companies are adding their own push to get you to recycle electronics.

Wired magazine is partnering with a company called YouRenew to challenge consumers to recycle 40,000 consumer electronics products between April 22 and May 21 in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, while Harris Teeter has joined MyBoneYard to provide a free and convenient way to donate individual items for recycling, order collection materials for a one-time collection event, or start a recycling fundraising program to support local schools.

Through the Wired/YouRenew program, you visit a cobranded website and follow three steps to join the challenge and get paid for old electronics. First, use the search bar onthe site to find your device (cell phone, digital camera, laptop, DVD, etc.). Then answer a few questions about the condition of your device, click “How Much?” to find out the device’s value and check-out to send in your device. Once YouRenew receives and checks your device you will receive payment by check or PayPal.

At check out, you also get to choose whether a donation will be made to carbonfund.orgor americanforests.org.

Harris Teeter’s new program allows people to recycle their old music players, PC systems and laptops, cell phones, game systems, flat panel monitors, digital cameras, film cameras, video cameras, camera lenses and GPS systems. You visit a section of the Harris Teeter website called “Engaged Recycling” under the sustainability information section for the company and click “Recycle Now” to go to the MyBoneYard-related site.

First you choose if you want to start your own recycling program, get collection materials for a one-time collection event or recycle individual items. If you choose that final option, you answer a few questions such as the make, model and overall condition of the item to recycle and are given an estimated value. You can get the amount in Harris Teeter gift cards or donate it to a Together in Education school. Harris Teeter also provides customers with a prepaid shipping label and voucher to send in the electronic device at no cost.

Not every product you offer at these sites will be worth money in return. But even if it isn’t, Harris Teeter will offer a $1 donation to a Together in Education school if you recycle it with them anyway. Wired will still recycle it even if they won’t pay you for it.