Charity Coin Jar

[l33tminion]

I counted and deposited my spare change today. It came to just over $40. Haven't figured out where to donate it yet, suggestions are welcome in the comments.

Comments

[conuly]

Have I spoken to you about solar ovens lately? (I really want more options than the two I've found for donating solar ovens to impoverished regions, but that's beside the point.)

[l33tminion]

Have a link?

Solar Cookers

[(Anonymous)]

That would be my suggestion too. Here is one link http://jewishworldwatch.org/refugeerelief/solarcookerproject.html#1. The American Jewish Committee is also doing this. It is a win-win all the way around. For a small $30 donation you buy 2 solar cookers and the accompanying training for a refugee from Darfur. It means the women don't need to go out to collect firewood and thus avoid getting raped or killed, they have access to clean water (by being able to boil their water), and the forests aren't deforested by all these refugees collecting firewood. We went to a Darfur action night a few months ago and I donated and then sent the information on to my entire teacher email list thinking that some of them might have middle or high school students who would want to do something with this as a class/school project.
Mom

[conuly]

Yes indeedy!

The use of solar ovens prevents deforestation, and it also cuts down on the number of greenhouse gases sent into the air. The greenhouse gases from cooking fires in Africa and India are actually a big part of global warming, quite aside from the deforestation.

People spend an inordinate amount of time and money obtaining fuel for their cooking fires - time and money that could be better spent, especially nowadays.

People are injured and killed by spending hours in close proximity to the fumes from cooking fires or by actually being burned in fires.

All these problems can be solved with an inexpensive solar oven - and once you have one, it's simple enough to work out how to make another one out of objects lying around.

[l33tminion]

An excellent suggestion, consider the money donated.

Actually, one of the SCOPE teams at my college this year was working on a similar project, designing high-efficiency low-cost wood stoves for poor families in Guatemala.

charity

[solfrejazz.livejournal.com]

How bout International Rescue Committee? - Paul Newman supports them.

[chiaki777.livejournal.com]

Solar ovens are great forms of environmentally sustainable and cheap cooking for impoverished and affluent areas alike. I like that idea.

There's also micro-loan associations like "Freedom From World Hunger" which issues micro loans on a community basis to women to help start small businesses.

Finally, you can always donate to my college fund. XD