The Better Present Pledge

Sea

The "Better Present for a Better Future" campaign, founded by Conservation International (CI), Heifer International (HI), and Share Our Strength (SOS), is designed to inspire a new way to think about holiday giving. By taking the "Better Present Pledge," you agree to give at least one gift to a nonprofit in honor of a friend or family member in lieu of a material present this holiday season.

Visit http://www.pearljam.com/activism/ for more info as well as a list of causes near and dear to the band.

tkepearljamn

Deal!

bmarsh10

Sounds like a good Idea to me, I'm In!!

einatshaul

Those ARE better presents.

cropdustress

This is pretty awesome.

5882300

I am going to donate to The Human Fund in honor of my brother in law.

sweet adeline

every year around this time i go down to state street and buy as many cheeseburgers from mcdonalds and hand them out to the homeless people asking for change.

its not the best thing, but at least i know they'll have some food in their bellies.

eddievedder1977

5882300 wrote:

I am going to donate to The Human Fund in honor of my brother in law.

you took what I was going to say. Hilarious.

Anyways, I tried talking my entire family into doing this for real, instead of exchanging gifts with each other, but they didn't go for it, again, for the 5th yr in a row.

Pegasus

sweet adeline wrote:

every year around this time i go down to state street and buy as many cheeseburgers from mcdonalds and hand them out to the homeless people asking for change.

its not the best thing, but at least i know they'll have some food in their bellies.

are you trying to poison them?
should give them PROPER food! (and mcdonald doesn't hold your stomach for long)

vedderfan10

Planning on doing this very thing..all the people we know have so much stuff - they have more than enough things, so hubby and I were going to donate on their behalf instead of giving them gifts...Good for PJ to bring it to the fore! Thanks for the reminder and the kick in the pants we needed to actually get going on it!

Given to...

I actually sent an email to Invisible Children in an attempt to donate in my brothers' name, as a gift. I never recieved any response so I decided to buy 4 hoodies and show off their cause on me, my wife, and my two kids. I hope it is ok to leave this link here: http://www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php

Hinny

Done.

Does it matter that the gift is going to the nonprofit organisation that I work for?

bootlegger10

I don't think it matters what charity you give to, as long as you give.

IamMine

I think it's a wonderful idea!

We're not exchanging presents this year, even with our four children with the exception of a few presents for our youngest daughter who is five.

The oldest three are fine with it because of the financial situation we are in and also how badly the economy is here in Michigan... but they will get a few presents from other members of the family.

They have different concepts of giving now and the meaning of Christmas.

But thanks for that site - I'll pass that around!

Brisk.

Pegasus wrote:

are you trying to poison them?
should give them PROPER food! (and mcdonald doesn't hold your stomach for long)

better than no food ;p

demetrios

I'm in!

Pegasus

I BrisK I wrote:

better than no food ;p

yeah, but Mcdonald is overpriced for what it actually is anyway, so you could provide more and better food for the same price..

on the main topic.. well, can't use the links provided because they're all americans (most of my gifts are to the family and they're all french) but I have considered it this year anyway..need to find the right cause for teh right person

Lost_Clay

I donate to the salvation army everytime i see them at the mall or whatnot as a tribute to something my father said years ago

Spunkie

That non-for-profit award winning literacy business looks great. I'd buy into that if buying a C.S. Lewis book for my niece wasn't an equal act of giving. As a matter of fact, thank you, Jeff, for choosing this organization to support. I think I'll send my niece a copy of the book that we started a few summer's ago (when I was loving her back to health), yet never finished reading aloud together. I'm sure that will be very dear to her heart and remind her of laughing each other to sleep.

Love to you. Thanks.

josevolution

i like to take sweaters, coats any warm clothing and look for the imigrants that are waiting on the street corners and hand them out to them ,it feels good

Foxy Mop

As part of my gift, I received a donation in my name to help a school girl in Africa from my Message Pit Secret Santa exchange this month! What a cool gift!

I'll be doing the same...

ozpjman

I read this too quickly and saw it as:

The Better President Pledge...

Was wondering why there werent a thousand pages with this thread hehe

rockpants

No question, I'm in.

Last year, my friends got gifts from Oxfam Unwrapped ... clean water for 25 people, school dinners for 100 pupils, an animal care kit, an HIV and AIDS awareness event, and the planting of 25 trees.

UK:
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/Default.aspx (click on Unwrapped banner)
Canada:
http://www.oxfamunwrapped.ca/
USA:
http://www.oxfamamericaunwrapped.com/
Australia:
http://www.oxfamunwrapped.com.au/
New Zealand:
http://www.oxfamunwrapped.org.nz/oxfam_unwrapped/shopping.asp
The Netherlands:
http://www.oxfamnovibpaktuit.nl/
Hong Kong:
http://oxfamunwrapped.oxfam.org.hk/

This year, I'll be splitting things up amongst many organizations.

Thanks to PJ for taking the time to promote these worthy causes and compiling a handy-dandy list of their favourites for our perusal and consideration.

einatshaul

I love what you're doing there in 10c, such good work, keep it up!

sigh eternally

I've been doing this with Heifer every Christmas since my grandmother died. I give the gift in her name. And I've been doing this with other loved ones as well.

I'm very pleased to see this as a sticky.

decides2dream

Sea wrote:

The "Better Present for a Better Future" campaign, founded by Conservation International (CI), Heifer International (HI), and Share Our Strength (SOS), is designed to inspire a new way to think about holiday giving. By taking the "Better Present Pledge," you agree to give at least one gift to a nonprofit in honor of a friend or family member in lieu of a material present this holiday season.

Visit http://www.pearljam.com/activism/ for more info as well as a list of causes near and dear to the band.

awesome post!



i have been giving my mother for christmas the past couple years a donation made in her honor to world vision organization. they assist impoverished children/families/women/communities with education, sustainability, medicine, etc. i know it's an organization/cause dear to my mother. i love such gifts b/c we all only need so much *stuff* in our lives...so when we can, best to share.

redrock

Thanks for reminding us of these things Sea.

Every year, we buy members of our family an oxfam unwrapped gift - usually related to something in their lives, eg. my godmother had a shop, we 'got' her a market stall. My daughter 'received' a desk and books for schoolchildren.

These are all wonderful ideas - whichever organisation one chooses.

ABetterMan

If you want ideas for who to donate to, go check out my Joshua House Fund thread.

meme

Done!

civ_eng_girl

our family did this this year... instead of exchanging gifts with my aunt, uncle, and grandparents, we made donations to http://www.unicef.ca

i donated two things which are imporant to me:

The Gift of Education:

The Gift of Education will send a child to school for one year and includes textbooks, school supplies and part of a teacher’s salary.

The Gift of Play - Art-In-A-Box:

There is magic in a crayon, paint box and coloured paper!

A child affected by HIV/AIDS deals with incredible trauma. Your gift of Art-in-a-Box gives them a chance to simply be a child – this is truly a Gift of Magic!

RyFly

http://www.Kiva.org is an awesome site. You can choose who you give a micro-loan to around the world.