5 Things you can donate today that WILL make a difference.

If you are frustrated, like I am, at bureaucracy and organizational monsters that eat 80% of your cash donation and barely let anything trickle down to the intended source, then please consider my words.


5 Things that you can donate today that WILL make a difference in your own community: 

1. Pet food, blankets/towels to your humane society, rescue organizations and any organization dedicated to helping pets find homes. These are grass roots, local initiatives that are using consumables (pet food, litter) every day of the year. www.manitobamutts.org  http://www.fundsfurfriends.com/ http://www.earthdogterrierrescue.com/ http://www.brandonhumanesociety.ca http://www.darcysarc.ca/

2. Craft supplies, sewing supplies, magazines, mitts, boots & toques to your local school or daycare.  The home/school co-ordinator, secretary, or parent council members will use these consumables where they are most needed. These items will benefit kids. Who hasn't lost a mitt and needed a spare?

3. Fancy clothes - for lack of a better word: your suits and skirts, dressy jackets, ties and anything a person might wear to a job interview or personal celebration. You can donate these items anywhere. Whether it's Value Village, a women's shelter, or even a soup kitchen. People need decent clothes for job interviews. This is a genuine way to help.  And all people deserve to feel special or even
"appropriate" at their family birthdays, anniversaries, graduations etc. Have you ever skipped an event because you didn't want to be embarrassed by not fitting in?

4. Canned goods - it's important to keep emergency and long term supplies in our soup kitchens all year round.

5. Personal toiletries like toothbrushes, shampoo, tampons, socks, underwear, polysporin, bandaids, a comb, deodorant. Or coupons for these and similar items. These items can go along way to making a person feel "human" or presentable. Whether it's Siloam Mission, the Salvation Army, a church, a clinic or other place of your choosing, it will help. You may take these items for granted, but a person stretching their food budget or trying to keep a roof over their heads, may consider these luxury items.

If you can help people and/or animals in your own community, please do.