March 2018 Donations

Years and years ago I heard about Smile Train and just HAD to send some cash their way. Smile Train is an international children’s charity with a sustainable approach to a single, solvable problem: cleft lip and palate. When I receive a donation form in the mail they write how much your donation will help, such as $250 will cover the cost of one complete cleft repair, whereas fifty bucks will cover an overnight hospital stay. The before and after photos of the kids will have you in tears. It's so wonderful to see the transformation and to know that I had a small part in changing some lives.

A friend of mine had sent a text to a bunch of us gal-pals to let us know that her cousin was gathering donations for The Water Project. Clean, safe drinking water is scarce. Today, nearly 1 billion people in the developing world don't have access to it. I tend to take a lot of every day things in my life for granted and clean water is one of them. I am always grateful, but it's so easy to let things slip to the back of your mind (like living in a safe area, possessing good health, having a plethora of food choices at my fingertips, good friends and family, freedom of speech, and so on and so forth) and let complaining take over ("Ugh, I have to wait til next year to go to Positano..." "Why is my stupid internet so slow..." et cetera...). It felt good to focus on being thankful, to help Auda reach her $1000 goal, and to assist in providing clean water to someone so far away.

I kept seeing ads on Instagram for something called 4Ocean and decided to check it out. The team at 4Ocean is looking to remove all the garbage from the ocean, so as soon as I read that, I was all in. This is a disturbing fact that they have posted on their website: By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the world's ocean. We're on a mission to stop this. Now it's my mission, too. Essentially by purchasing a bracelet (it's simple and non-gender specific) the money will go to removing a pound of trash from the ocean. I felt compelled to place an order. Now technically this doesn't count as a real donation, since I was actually buying a bracelet, or two in this case, but it was for a good cause so I'm counting it as bonus donations for the month.

Please join me in the Low Budget Philanthropy movement and help out your community and beyond in the simplest way - donating any amount to whatever charity or organisation that you care about!