Tampons and simple thoughts.

Charity.
An institution set up to provide help to the needy.

I consider myself a charitable person.

I donate my time to the food banks.
I talk others into giving blood.
(that’s right...OTHERS-shaddup, they can’t use my bad blood even if I COULD stomach giving it!)
I give money and food and I do random acts of charitable kindness.
I buy from all the office girls’ children when they are selling things for school.
I sponsor walks for Cancer and Runs for MS.
I save pennies for the school penny drive and I even save my yogurt lids.

But I believe charity starts at home.

It seems that 90% of the charities that contact me are in support of another nation's problem.

There’s Bangladesh Cyclone Relief,
Sudan Refugee Relief,
Pakistan Earthquake Relief,
Humanitarian Crisis in Southeast Asian,
Save Darfur Coalition,
Neglected Humanitarian Crisis in Uganda, and my favorite...
Mexico Flood Relief (Don’t we call that San Antonio?)

We have commercials asking us to donate "the cost of a cup of coffee" to feed a child in a foreign country,
ads about how an African girl can’t go to school because she needs tampons–(please give)

We have products of all kinds label "RED"-which supports AIDs in Africa,
the "White Ella Project" which is for children with AIDs in Africa.

There is an Iraq Relief Charity to help those Iraqi in need, due to the suffering caused by the war. The war OUR boys are fighting. The one that has killed thousands of our sons, husbands, brothers.
*I wonder if the Relief Fund makes enough to help support the children in America that are left without fathers? or help pay for the therapy the grieving parents need? or assist in helping take care of a husband who has no limbs.

Please don’t misunderstand, I am apathetic to the plight of all these nations and their people.

But on your way to the grocery store, the airport, the doctor’s office...look around.

We have so many people in need right here in
every
single
city
of America.

Go to the elementary school "on the wrong side of the tracks" and see the kids who live without running water or food in the fridge.

Go to the rural neighborhoods where our elderly aren’t able to take care of themselves but can’t afford nursing homes or home health care.

Go to the shelters that are full every night with families that are STILL homeless due to the tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes and floods in our own communities.

I believe in charities.

But I cannot in good conscience walk past the sick child whose parent cannot afford to get him the healthcare he needs

to drop a check in the mail,


to help supply tampons to a girl in Africa.



*please check the rating of ANY charity you support. Give responsibly.

http://www.charitywatch.org/azlist.html