Painless Giving

When I travel I tend to fly American Airlines and have found a way to give painlessly every time I do so I thought I would pass it on. Here is the information from The Center in San Diego:

Flying somewhere?

Every time you book a ticket with American Airlines, remember to take The Center with you. When making your reservations, include The Center’s “Business ExtrAA Account#: 527593.” You will still receive all your AA miles and The Center will earn airline tickets used to create vacation packages for silent auctions at our major events or to send staff to important trainings in different cities.

Everyone Can Give Something

This morning I was listening to KFI and my heart was breaking. The station is doing a Radiothon for the Salvation Army. Donations are off from last year and service requests have nearly tripled due to the situation out there. Bill Handel was telling people just give up Starbucks for one day and donate the money and that anyone, regardless of how bad off you think you are, can donate something whether it is time, goods, or money. So acting on both good conservative principles (individuals give to help other individuals) and in some part in answer to a bit of a guilty conscious (thanks Mr. Handel) I upped my giving to a couple of local charities. Now I know I am blessed in so many ways and can do this, but if you can't that does not exempt you. Maybe you can help a friend or neighbor having a hard time, maybe you can take a couple of cans of food to a local food bank or donate time at a shelter... but you can do something to help people less fortunate than you. If we all did this, if we got off our behinds and did something no matter how small and tell ourselves "This is for those less fortunate than I am" just think of how much better off the world would be.

Just to help, here are some links to some of my favorites at this time of the year (and you don't even have to search the site as these links take you right to the donate page):

National:

Salvation Army

Feeding America

Children's Health Fund

San Diego:

Mama's Kitchen

And one for you east-side Missouri folks:

St. Louis Foodbank

Charity Wine Tasting For Momma's Kitchen

Last night my beau and I attended a charity wine tasting for Momma's Kitchen, a local organization that prepares and delivers food for people with HIV or other critical illnesses at no charge (a very worthy cause in my opinion). We arrived there at 7, just missing the whites being served but we did get a glass of sparkling wine before sampling the reds and diving into the finger food supplied by some of the better local restaurants (including one of my favorites, Bite). From what I could tell all of the wines were from one producer, Alice White. If you want to read my review of the wine check out my other site under a posting of the same name.

The event appeared to be a success with the bulk of the crowd staying the entire time allotted. We are now looking into ways we can further support this organization.