Monday, September 13th, 2010...12:28 am

Help Me Help The World

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In March I tried something new by taking $5 from every tournament bracket in the Littyhoops NCAA pool and setting it aside for charity. I figured that by adding a good cause element to an otherwise borderline illegal, productivity-sucking activity it not only would justify my primal need to be the guy who does the brackets (19 years and running) but would also let me be proud of it! Most people really liked this idea and nobody had any issue with 20% of the pool going to the poor people. With just about 100 entries, we were able to raise $500.

I’m just now getting around to figuring out how I should share this pirate’s booty. My original idea was to donate to – an awesome organization that allows people to pick specific projects to help fund school and classroom needs. (I wrote about Donor’s Choose here) I’m still definitely going to hook up a few of there projects and probably focus on literature, sports or math projects in NYC schools. If you spend over $100 to help fund a project all the students in the classroom will write you a thank you card. How sweet is that. I’m already saving some space on my fridge.

But I wanted to open this up to all of you readers. If you have a good cause that you support, I’d be happy to donate $36 to it. Just send me an email about the organization and how I can donate. I’d even like to do it in your name or honor. It would be great to hear why the cause is meaningful to you. Better yet, if you make the request as a comment to this blog post (for all to see) I’ll donate $50.

As I spend some time reflecting over the Jewish holidays and doing my all to get Littyhoops inscribed in the Book of Life, I’m kind of bummed out that I have yet to be more directly involved in philanthropic activities. I jotted down some thoughts about how I wanted to do this in a blog post but that was over three years ago and there’s been very little movement on my part. I even made a secret goal for 2011 to raise at least $2K for charity and right now I’m only a quarter of the way there. Perhaps this is the first stop on my tzedakah train. Perhaps your projects or cause will inspire me. I sure hope so.

Shana Tova Homies.

5 Comments

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  • Peter

    Litty – Any contributions to the Nate Wasserman Camp Fund would be appreciated. Our charity sends underprivileged and terminally ill children to summer camps throughout the country. All donation information can be found here: http://alumni.campmenominee.com/nate.shtml.

    Big Thanks!

    PSE

  • JC

    Litty – Comfort Zone Camp (http://www.comfortzonecamp.org/giving) is a great program for grieving children who have lost a parent or loved one. They have camps in NJ, VA, MA, TX, and CA throughout the year and subsist solely on donations. Very worthy cause and any donation would be much appreciated.

    Coop

  • js

    Litty – Great idea! The Youth Development Center (YDC) is a nonprofit organization that serves children from the Greater Fifth Ward. YDC (http://www.ydc.org/) operates an after-school academic remediation program that addresses literacy development for inner city students in grades 3 – 8.

    JS

  • Bsahn

    Love all the support for the kiddies! here is a fundraiser event that some of you might also want to attend in NYC for an amazing cause. http://giving.chop.edu/site/PageServer?pagename=all_PokerHomepage
    The “All In” for Kids Poker Tournament supports The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment. The Center offers hope to families pregnant with babies diagnosed with diseases before being born. Thousands of parents-to-be hope to access life-saving therapies for their babies that simply don’t exist elsewhere.

  • Mjspiegel

    FIDF – Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces
    Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) was established in 1981 by a group of Holocaust survivors to provide for the wellbeing of the men and women who serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as well as the families of fallen soldiers.
    Great cause!

    https://www.fidf.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=300