Monday, December 14, 2009
What I did not buy [dot] org
Posted by Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 1:59 PM
No, really. It's an actual Web site. Check it out: http://www.whatididnotbuy.org/.
Seriously, all of that crap you're buying just so you'll have something to hand out — do your friends, family and coworkers actually need or want it? If the answer is no, donate to charity in their name instead.
A new Web site lets people donate to charity the money they would have spent on, say, that $44.50 Henley sweater from the Gap — or, better yet, the $250,000 his-and-hers ICON aircraft that Neiman Marcus is selling this year.“What we’re trying to do,” said Susan Davis, the president and chief executive of BRAC USA, “is emphasize how much you could help accomplish with an amount of money that you might otherwise spend on something you or someone else might not really want or need.”
As of midday Friday, 89 people had contributed roughly $500 using the site, forgoing items like a blender, Champagne, power tools and a flat-screen television.
Jennifer Buffett, president of the NoVo Foundation, one of BRAC’s biggest supporters, said the foundation, based in New York, had decided to use e-cards and donate the $350 it spent on paper cards last year to support three teachers in southern Sudan. The foundation’s seven-member staff also decided that instead of buying one another Secret Santa gifts, they would put the money toward projects described on the new Web site.
Read the entire New York Times article, by Stephanie Strom, here.
Here's another option http://www.givekriskringletheboot.org, though this one is in Australia. Of course, there's no need to give through an organization. Look around. Do you have a neighbor that could use a little boost?
In related news: Santa and CMPD join forces
The American Red Cross distributing donated gifts at Walter Reid Army Medical Center:
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