Giving/Charity

Interesting Article: In The Season of Giving…You Can’t Give Food To Homeless In NYC? And Not For Reasons That You Think!

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy here.

by Cassie on November 28, 2012

Wow – this was a surprising read for us this morning! We just read how Mayor Bloomberg in New York City banned food donations to government run homeless shelters in the city.  Not because food contamination is the concern, but because the concern is the nutritional value which can’t be assessed?

Why are we talking about this?  Well, as one aspect of who we are, we highly encourage donating and giving to others in all circumstances and in all forms of giving: Foods that you were able to get for cheap, new and used clothing, toys, etc., personal care items, etc.

But one other thing that we have alluded to several times, is giving when you have a surplus as well, or even the grocery stores and bakeries giving their “day old” foods to church groups and many other organizations.  These foods are fine and a very necessary addition for any one that is starving.

The NYC shelters are rejecting soup, bagels and other fresh foods from area churches and community groups who have a surplus of food after an event.  This was a common form of donation around the whole city from the area churches – and usually church food is so fantastic too as it is often homemade with love :)

Here’s the quote from one of the articles we saw:

“Mayor Michael Bloomberg in March instituted a ban on food donations to homeless shelters. No, not because of food contamination, but because the city can’t properly assess salt, fat and fiber in donated food and thereby ensure starving people are getting the optimal levels of nutrition.”

It is sad to see that starving people are being deprived of food, especially fresh made foods because they can’t gauge these petty things (petty in this circumstance).  Another surprising fact regarding this situation is that the original ban was in March of 2012, but it was brought up in questioning again after both Hurricane Sandy and the increased needs in the area as well as the higher needs for food donations in the cold and holiday seasons.  But the ban still sticks despite those things.

Does this seem odd to anyone else??

In the meantime, the rest of the country, we highly encourage you to do what you can to give to others this season and all year round.  Even in the form of surplus of fresh foods!  It is a beautiful thing to see people giving to those in need in whatever ways they can.

Original Sources of the Story: MSN.com and FoxNews.com

Photo Credit: HiveHealthMedia.com

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Alex & Cassie
 

Last Day To Vote: This Beautiful Charity is In Second Place for $50K, Can You Help Them with a Just a Click?

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy here.

by Cassie on October 31, 2012

Reminder: TODAY, October 31st, 2012 is the LAST DAY to vote and help this charity with no money out of your pocket, just a click of your mouse! Can you vote one more time?

We are reposting this as this charity giveaway only has a few more days left and they are in second place, being close to first with just a handful of votes needed to be in first.  We are not affiliated with this giveaway or charity, but we really think that what they are doing to help underprivileged women and children is amazing.  They are very close to winning $50,000 to help them build free full-service high quality hospitals all over the nation (with the first one being built in Memphis, TN) for women and their babies.  You can vote everyday and it literally takes a second.

Click on this link HERE to quickly vote for The Morning Center. You can vote everyday too!

*Please note, this is being offered from Cultivate Wines as they are the ones giving the money away, as such, you do need to be 21 to vote.  You will need to log-in with Facebook to place your vote.  Please make sure you see the “Thank You” for your vote screen to be sure your vote was counted. 

It looks like this – if you see this, your vote was counted!

Thank you from both of us and all mothers and babies who will be helped with this charity!

If you would like to see our original post for more details about this charity, please head to this post HERE. 

Again… we do not receive anything for endorsing this.  If you have been reading our site long, you know that charity and giving is a top priority and so we talk about opportunities to do so, especially when it costs very little and in this case nothing to help others in this world!

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Alex & Cassie
 

This Beautiful Charity is In Second Place for $50K, Can You Help Them with a Just a Click?

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy here.

by Cassie on October 26, 2012

We are reposting this as this charity giveaway only has a few more days left and they are in second place, being close to first with just a handful of votes needed to be in first.  We are not affiliated with this giveaway or charity, but we really think that what they are doing to help underprivileged women and children is amazing.  They are very close to winning $50,000 to help them build free full-service high quality hospitals all over the nation (with the first one being built in Memphis, TN) for women and their babies.  You can vote everyday and it literally takes a second.

Click on this link HERE to quickly vote for The Morning Center. You can vote everyday too!

*Please note, this is being offered from Cultivate Wines as they are the ones giving the money away, as such, you do need to be 21 to vote.  You will need to log-in with Facebook to place your vote.  Please make sure you see the “Thank You” for your vote screen to be sure your vote was counted. 

It looks like this – if you see this, your vote was counted!

Thank you from both of us and all mothers and babies who will be helped with this charity!

If you would like to see our original post for more details about this charity, please head to this post HERE. 

Again… we do not receive anything for endorsing this.  If you have been reading our site long, you know that charity and giving is a top priority and so we talk about opportunities to do so, especially when it costs very little and in this case nothing to help others in this world!

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Alex & Cassie
 

Beautiful Story of Giving, Way to Give For Free And We’re Giving $300 Away Too

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy here.

by Cassie on October 12, 2012

We saw this beautiful story posted on the Target Facebook page as a real life event that a Target cashier experienced on her shift.  With this time of year and giving needs increased across our nation, we thought that this story would put us all in the mood!

While you are at it, you can participate in giving this season in one simple way – a click to vote and help underprivileged women and their babies to receive free high quality health care.  Plus, we are giving away $300 total cash prizes to six of our readers for this holiday season and you can enter everyday (so here’s a reminder :) )

Enter HERE to be one of the 6 winners to get a $50 cash prize as well as cast a free vote for a charity to win $50,000 for an extra entry each day too!

With that and in the season and spirit of giving, check out this sweet testimony from a Target Cashier:

Tonight, an amazing thing took place. Amazing, supernatural almost! A guest got to the register and didn’t have the money to pay, his debit card declined him. He went off to make phone calls and see if he could get the money. Another guest overhearing his situation, and seeing him, his wife, and 5 yr old child,(obviously struggling in life) said to me when I was about half way through ringing her… up,,”I want to pay their bill” I said “it’s a lot, it’s 161.85″ to that she said.”I have needed help before, and I want to help them” So I went ahead and brought up their transaction, and she proceeded to pay for it. I finished up with her, and her and her hubby walked away quietly.

When the gentleman came back to tell me he was trying to still get a hold of someone, I explained that his bill was paid in full. He was confused, I went on to tell him that there are good people in this old world, and even though someone doesn’t know him, they still love him and care about him. His wife was crying, and he was speechless. Well then the next guest in line was very interested in this conversation as well, she was just smiling. Suddenly the guy that just got his bill paid, said” I didn’t have enough for my bill, but I have a 20.00 to pay for hers, here, take it. So a lot of fussing going on, I took it and it covered her bill.

Then the money she was gonna use, she handed to me and said “use this for the next person. Two teenage girls came up to buy a purse, I explained it was paid for, and they were shocked. Of course I had to give them some history on how this had come about. Then these 2 teenagers, rather than just spending the money the had saved, said “here, take this, use it for the next person, I wanna keep this going. The next person was buying a birthday gift, and when I explained that some money had already been [paid on it, they were astounded. This guy goes on to tell me he’s a cop for the the Beaverton Police Dept, and he sees so much wickedness, and thanked me for telling him the whole story. He said to “this is the most amazing story I have heard!” Thank you for sharing that with us” As he and his wife walked out of the store, I heard him say to her again “isn’t that the most amazing story you have ever heard?”

I am so touched, and feel so blessed to have witnessed so much kindness and generosity. I think I was more blessed tonight than any of them,…cuz I Needed to see some real pure good, just pure good. Thank you Lord for blessing me with this experience!

Happy Season of Giving and Loving Others

Photo Credit: LATimesBlog.com

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Alex & Cassie
 

Please Click To Vote To Help This Charity Win $50,000 – Just a Click of Your Time To Help Many

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy here.

by Cassie on September 19, 2012

A while ago we announced that we have chosen The Morning Center to support as a family by giving a portion of the proceeds that comes from our site.  We do make a little money from the ads, sponsors and affiliations (although we do not post or promote anything that we don’t personally believe in) and so we wanted to give back some of these proceeds to be able to help others.

We chose The Morning Center because it is a beautiful charity that provides free maternity care to mothers and their babies who are unable to afford medical care.

They have big hopes of building care facilities all over the United States, but they have started this past year by having Mobile Care Units in three cities to provide free, high quality prenatal and maternity care for mothers in urban areas to learn how to care for themselves and their growing babies.

Here’s the video that shows explains a little more about this ministry and charity:

Why do we share this with you again today?  Well, The Morning Center has been enrolled in a Charity Giveaway where they could win $50,000 by just getting enough votes!

This is a huge blessing and opportunity for The Morning Center and mothers and their babies all over the country.  As much as we would love to just give them $50,000, it is outside of our means now, but we can vote each day starting today, September 19th -  October 31 just by simply clicking a button to vote for them. This charity $50,000 giveaway is being sponsored by “Cultivate Wines” and votes are all that is needed for this charity to win!

You can vote each day for The Morning Center HERE. It takes just a second and even more women and children all over the country could be receiving better and free maternity care because of it!

The cool part is that The Morning Center is making it easy for you to vote by allowing you to register on their site HERE to be reminded each day to vote for the next 6-weeks.  We encourage you to sign-up for those reminders too and take a moment out of each day to help!

Some additional information:  Not only are we excited about their mission and vision, but we are excited how they are approaching this as well.  They mentioned a while ago that unlike most hospital nonprofit charities that spend up to 33 cents for every dollar raised that they are seeking to keep the same costs under 10% – which shows us their goal to be good stewards with the money given to this charity (a very thrifty approach :) ).  And not only that, but we feel their announcement to start with three Mobile Care Units in three different cities blew us out of the water!  We see this as a huge benefit for the work as this incremental approach will allow them to minister to more women and children with an initial lower investment while they work to establish the long-term, permanent hospitals in different cities across the nation in the future! We love that they are using the money for an amazing cause, but also being very wise with how the money is spent!

Thank you for letting us share this with you and we pray you will be excited about this as well and help them win $50,000!

Update: Yahoo News has also posted about this great way to give for free.  You can see the Yahoo news article HERE.

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Alex & Cassie
 

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