2010 Karma: ilXors and their good deeds.

Do you do anything to help others? Volunteering, organising events, helping others etc.? Come here for a well deserved pat on the back. Or to feel guilty and discuss actually doing something in the future.

While all unemployed and having super amounts of free time, I keep thinking I should do more*. Dunno what though, thinking of a big project with fundraising and sponsership or something. Maybe do thee ol' lands end to john o' groats for... there aren't really any charities I really care about. Who should I(/we?) be helping? What causes need their profile raised?

*I currently volunteer at Cancer Research but I'm not sure if having first dibs on the cds/dvds/books I sort and reading behind the counter 2 days a week really counts. It's basically my life but in town instead of in my bedroom.

http://www.kiva.org/

^^^redistribute some wealth

I've volunteered at Glide Memorial, which is my favorite local charity, but unfortunately since having a kid I haven't found a way to carve out time for it.

hey shakey

http://cdn-write.demandstudios.com/upload//7000/100/70/7/7177.jpg

got no wealth to distribute :(

Umm kinda except no. I work for G00dwill and the money I help them makes goes to helping people with various barriers to employment get job skills and/or find work, though this is just my day job and I'm not personally doing anything charitable, not directly, not in any selfless way.

My landlord/roommate volunteers seasonally to help clean up trails in the Badlands and I've considered asking him if there's room for one more.

'Bout it for me.

feed some people

every Wednesday night my grandfather would go down to his local church in Riverside and do the soup kitchen/free meals thing. A few times I was brought along to help out and this made a big impression on me.

I live in an area with a large homeless population. There are lots of social service orgs in the neighborhood, lots of shelters etc. I help out feeding people (if I ever win the lottery, I'm opening a diner like SAME Cafe or SOME down here) as often as I can, and I knit hats for Real Change vendors. I used to volunteer doing tech work at non-profits through N-Power when I had more time and worked from home. And I really enjoyed recording textbooks through RFBD when I lived in an area that had one of their studios. I did the Blog-a-thon one year where I cooked for 24 hours and blogged about it, then sold the baked goods the next day - sent all the $ to Heifer, which I think is my favorite charity.

have heard good things about Heifer

I've finally convinced my wife that not only do I not need big piles of cheap plastic merch at Christmas, I actively hate getting piles of cheap plastic merch at Christmas. So now we give a big (for us) donation to Heifer, and also our gift to her brother and his wife each year is a donation in their name. (Tough shit if they wanted piles of merch.)

i hate to even post in here (CATHOLIC), but

-- raised about 4k for haiti relief
-- started non-profit that partners with int'l orgs to raise $$$ for grassroots projects

on the 13th we have the first training meeting for our new 501c3, with which I and others will continue to do stovebuilding work and other such things in Peru.

I'll also be making desserts for a Haiti benefit on the 10th.

wtg gbx!

I think gbx is winning so far. Remind me to buy you a beer if we ever meet. Hell remind me to buy you all beers.

bump, good people.

i am going to give blood when i get a chance and maybe go to a fundraiser for Chile. Pretty paltry as far as this thread goes, but fuck it, i'm not that good a person but i at least try a bit.

paltry? raise funds, our jim! and blood is always great.

i got part way through red cross volunteer training but now i am moving so i don't actually get to DO anything and will have to start over.

Giving blood is the easiest! It costs you nothing + you get snacks & juice for doing it. ANd also that bit about saving lives.

Plus it is totally METAL and 666 and ETC bcz you get to watch your own crimson lifeforce spill out of your mortal arm.

unless ur a passer-outer :(
never doing that again

Giving blood is the easiest! It costs you nothing + you get snacks & juice for doing it. ANd also that bit about saving lives.

and sometimes t-shirts! I need to get back on a donation schedule.

Unless you are a passer-outer, or gay, or had a tattoo in the past year, or were in Europe at a certain time, or have a cardiac issue that would allow you to give blood but is anomalous enough to make phlebotomists nervous, or are on certain medications...then, nevermind.

i gave blood recently for the first time and only been able to give again for last couple of weeks, definitely doing it soon. I didn't feel any adverse effects afterwards and it didn't hurt. Only drawback was that I have exceptionally small veins, apparently, and it took me an inordinately long time to give my donation. The blood was coming out so slowly it fooled the machine into thinking nothing was coming out, it started beeping, because it wasn't sensitive enough to detect the small, super-slow trickle of blood issuing from me.

i remember feeling really bad once because i was talking with a girl who i worked with and after work she was going to teach refugees english. I'm the son of a refugee and have never done shit for them. I've worked 26 days out of the last 30 though and at the moment can't even really think about volunteer work. Just an excuse I guess, i'm seldom so busy!

Yeah I'm currently unsure about giving blood w/ all the pills I'm on. When they rolled through town last time I'd just got a bunch of jabs and couldn't do it. I should ask, I <3 getting it done. Nothing like a good excuse for wooziness.

jim- highfive that coworker.

unless ur a passer-outer :(
never doing that again

― harbl, Sunday, April 4, 2010 9:16 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

^^^^^^^

:(

Happened at the doctor though, wasn't giving blood. Two wimpy little vials. Zonk.

Still got my juice though motherfuckers.

guessing rabies you are unable to give blood also due to rabies

I should give blood again sometime soon, despite my intense dislike of Red Cross Australia's policy of no gay blood donors allowed. Apparently that's how you catch the gay.

^^^100% het hero

Does it have a cutoff date like the US guidelines do? It's 1977 here.

Help The Reverend pay rent, get crunk, and bribe strippers...2010 rolling HELP A FELLOW ILX0R thread....

hey fyi ilxors are awesome.

i'm not allowed to give blood ever thanks to ENGLAND and yr yen for cow brains

wow, i just double-checked and i really AM not allowed to ever give blood: i had thought the vCJD policy was "if you'd been in the UK w/in the last three years" which for me is practically a given. apparently it's actually "you are not eligible to donate if: From January 1, 1980, through December 31, 1996, you spent (visited or lived) a cumulative time of 3 months or more, in the United Kingdom (UK)"

that span pretty neatly covers the time of my life (born jan 81) when i was going to the UK for a month+ nearly every summer

sorry A-neg ppl, looks like i won't be sharing

lol you have bse

got a sponge for a brain now u_u

most of my fundraisers this year have been for theatrical companies but in years past i have done volunteer calltaking for red cross donation hotlines.

think I'm not allowed to give blood because I spent two summers in Peru. forget for how long I am barred though. I would like a big snickerdoodle.

ok I got a doozy here

after the football match I saw tonight finished in a Charlton victory, I went to the train station and walked to the front of the platform

there I noticed a not unattractive young lady wielding a book and talking on her phone

however, there was to be a twist

while gesticulating, or reaching for her bag...the book spilt from her hand, and fell...over the platform edge!

her phone conversation became a lament for the book

"and now I've just dropped my book next to the tracks! I guess I won't be reading it then...'Stupid White Men' by Michael Moore..."

"it's not very good" quips your favourite half-cypriot cardiacs fanboy. "read the Al Franken book instead"

"someone's saying it's not very good!" she says. nonetheless, it would be a shame for her to be deprived brash left-wing rhetoric.

it is realised that nobody will have long enough arms, and the train is imminent. mooted suggestions include lowering her by her legs. someone else is all "I could swear she had a head when she went down there" and lols are had

suddenly, yours truly has a brainwave, and removes his shoes

he gets on his front and leans over the platform edge

there is general astonishment and consternation

the train we were waiting for was already late, and the book-dropper, still on the phone, designates herself train-watcher

then, our hero, holding his shoes by the toecaps, can just about reach the fallen tome with the heels

he manoeuvres it into an upright position, and then clamps a few pages

then, swinging his body around, he flips away from danger as the book falls to the platform

he picks it up and hands it to the lass, before nonchalantly re-shoeing

her thanks are met with a curt "no problem". her offer of the book is met with a firm (and true) "I already have a copy". she is still on the phone. "some gentleman has rescued my book!" she sounds awfully excited

one merely observes that it is a good thing one possesses size 13s

godspeed, ditzy one. jagger won't be there to save you every day

lol

omg

um i threaded a needle for a lady at work

i also hung a coat hook for her because she was not tall enough to reach

so u risked (to a v small degree) death/dismemberment/electrocution to retrieve a terrible book?

part of my reasoning for going ahead was that it would have been a deliciously ironic death given the book-title

plus there were like 20 gawping onlookers primed to yell TRAIN if it appeared...as it turned out, it arrived like 2 minutes later

as for electrocution, the third rail is always on the far side from the platform in stations

so u risked (to a v small degree) death/dismemberment/electrocution to retrieve a terrible book impress a hot chick?

and remind her that he was a size 13 shoe, let's not forget

lol it wasn't even to impress her so much, it was more out of a genuine desire to see if I could reverse the bizarre and unfortunate situation of a book fallen to irretrievable ground

plus there was a BIG audience, always helps

oh you, dmac

spent all evening baking 36 x double choc chip & orange cookies & 1 x apple pie for charity bake morning at work tomorrow.

then ran 5k as part of training for 1/2 marathon i'm running for local hospice in july.

well you know what they say about boys with big shoes...

they are prone to talking like they are from an 18th century dictionary with all the words with 2 syllables or less removed. also they support charlton.

....they're commonly frustrated with the range of footwear available to choose from during the sales?

I like that part of LJ's good deed involves correcting a stranger's taste.

her thanks are met with a curt "no problem". her offer of the book is met with a firm (and true) "I already have a copy". she is still on the phone. "some gentleman has rescued my book!" she sounds awfully excited

one merely observes that it is a good thing one possesses size 13s

godspeed, ditzy one. big sam won't be there to save you every day

looooooooool ok zung

images of lj going around tasting strangers now, thanks abbott

godspeed, ditzy one. jagger won't be there to save you every day

defeatist attitude, btw

don't taste me, bro!

"some gentleman has rescued my book!" she sounds awfully excited

jane austen slashfic

i hope you had clean soles.

angel with filthy soles

i did nothing to help people in 2010, in fact I took many things from ppl

Ive been covering a brother whose long term disability got stopped two months before Christmas, finally got word today that hes back on some other payment.

No other way around it but im not going to see any of it back and its just the wrong time for it to have come up what with deposits and costs, but its not his fault and hes in a fragile state often enough and yknow what are you gonna do.

as someone who has received help from family for a while, by doing that you've absolutely allowed him to see brighter days than he otherwise would have in the future, and you should feel very good about it.

Thanks thats honestly a lovely thing to hear

Very true indeed. You did what needs doing.