Do you remember the old days of authors suing fan fiction authors into oblivion? The Organization for Transformative Works does, and they want to make sure it never happens again.
Tag: best charities
My favorite charities Part Four
This one is particulaly near and dear to my heart. You’re lucky this is via computer and not paper or there’d be an embarassing number of tear stains.
My dad had cancer. And then the cure for that cancer gave him cancer. The cancer that the cancer cure gave him killed him. Cancer sucks.
While we were dealing with the second cancer (Acute Myeloid Leukemia, for those of you who like details) the bills began to get on top of us. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society stepped in and helped us pay for some of it. And when we couldn’t find a bone marrow donor that was compatible with my dad in the family LLS helped connect us with Be the Match, which helped us organize bone marrow donor registration drives. (It’s free to register through a drive! And painless! All you have to do is swab your mouth.)
LLS does a lot of really important work from supporting people with cancer to funding research to end the aformentioned cancers. My family would have struggled a lot more without them.
There are lots of ways to help LLS. You can donate money, volunteer, harass government officials into spending more money on cancer research, or take part in a fundraising activity like Light the Night.
My favorite charities Part Three
This one’s my mom’s favorite charity! It makes it pretty easy to shop for her on Mother’s Day, to be honest. Every year a basket of duckies.
Heifer International sends animals around the world. Well, it’s a little more complicated. What they do is train people in impoverished areas on animal husbandry and then give them an farm animal.
The idea is that having something like chickens that lay eggs or a cow that produces milk will create food for the person. And when there’s extra they can sell it, providing income for the person. And over time as the animals reproduce the person can train their neighbors and give them an animal, thereby recreating the cycle and, hopefully, lifting an entire community out of poverty.
My personal dream is to one day be rich enough to donate an entire Ark, which is basically an entire farm. If I’m ever able to do that I’ll really know I’ve made it.
There are lots of ways to support Heifer besides just shipping someone a beehive, cow, or flock of ducklings. You can do some creative fundraising, volunteer, or a gazillion other things all suggested on this handy page.
Bess Carnan 