I provide financial support to quite a few organizations. These are some great groups, and if you’re looking to increase your charitable giving, I recommend them.
University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine
I started supporting the school when Tobin, my yellow Lab, was diagnosed with melanoma in 2004. He was on an experimental melanoma vaccine developed by the school. He fought the cancer for a year, but ultimately lost the battle and died in October 2005. There are many great giving opportunities, but I contribute to the Animal Cancer Treatment Program and have purchased four bricks for the Walk of Honor. I also established the Tobin Scholarship, in honor and memory of Tobin, at the school.
Crossroads Church is a church plant by a friend of mine, Ariel Vanderhorst. I met Ariel through his first blog, BitterSweetLife, while searching Blogger for other Kansas City bloggers. I left a comment on his site, we blogrolled each other and had a few email conversations. I popped into his dad’s church one Sunday for our first in-person meeting. I showed up with the gift of a couple books on two of his favorite authors, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Ariel is married and has two boys, Aidan and Asher, but he claims the alliteration was not intentional. I know, I asked. If you want to help him with his church plant, you can contact him through his church website. He has a prospectus available for download if you want to read that. He also blogs at arieljvan.com.
I found out about Marine Parents through a misdirected email from the site’s founder. I checked the site out and chatted with her for a bit and decided it was a group I wanted to support. They have several giving opportunities, but I’ve been supporting the Care Package Project, which delivers care packages to Marines stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. A single care package is just $22.
I found out about George Mark Children’s House from Wesley Smith’s blog, Secondhand Smoke. They provide respite and end of life care for children with serious and terminal illnesses and their families. I think the is an organization that is definitely worthy of support.
I’m a dog person, and I really hate seeing stray dogs, especially puppies. I’ve picked up two stray puppies and dropped them off at Wayside Waifs. I was tempted to keep the last one, but she was very skittish around me and I didn’t really have the time to work with her. If you care about animals, this is a great organization to support.
While surfing the web in 2004, I came upon a site that mentioned a couple that were moving to Augusta, Maine, to plant a church. I thought that was something that I’d like to support, and I’ve been making contributions to their church ever since. Also, the church has grown since then, planting a new church in Winthrop. The church is a Southern Baptist congregation.