Oprah's Big Give & Giving w/ Strings Attached

While channel surfing, I stumbled upon something that turned my stomach. There a lot of irritating shows out there, but I shortly discovered I was watching Oprah's Big Give. Now, I'm pretty ambivalent about Oprah. I don't watch her talk show and know only the obvious things about her. When I heard about her Big Give show, I didn't think much about it one way or another. I did think it might draw some attention to philanthropy in general, but I knew it would be very commercial and very self-promoting for everybody involved so I wasn't too interested. But I didn't know it would be as tacky and demeaning as what I saw.

I went to the web later to find out the rules of what I had been watching. Each person was given $100,000 and 24 hrs to give it all away. The contestants had to "dream up most dramatic, most exciting,most creative way" of spreading their wealth. The catch was that they couldn't give away cash, couldn't spend more than $500 on any one person, and couldn't spend more than $10,000 in any one place. I tuned in to see one of the contestants go to Target, find a bunch of people and tell them they had 5 min (or was it 10?) to run around the store and spend $500. People were running, sweating, being yelled at by the Big Give contestant and generally acting really desperate in front of the camera. Then, the contestant and the Big Give crew found the most down on their luck family to interview. It was a family living in a shelter who seemed to truly need the break and were very appreciative. I have no beef with the actions of the family. It was the fact that the contestant set up these stupid rules which made the family scramble around for the amusement of the masses. The dad was literally drenched in sweat from having to run all over the place and trying to give his daughter some life advice about being in the right place at the right time. But in the process of helping people, was it necessary to make them scramble around in a maze of limitations to find basic necessities when their lives are probably rather like that metaphor all the time? Sure, it's nice to give people a boost, but wouldn't those people be able to be more thoughtful about getting what they really need without a ridiculous time constraint? The editors chose a lot of pictures of babies to get viewers worked up about their needs that would be met. But any mother with a child about to melt down can tell you from experience that you cannot thoughtfully spend $500 to fulfill your baby's needs in 5 or 10 minutes. Yes, it is a kindness to give to people, but it should not be with attached strings that unduly impose more stress and hardship on those whose lives might already seem like a futile race to artificial deadlines.

The Social Cause Diet: Finding A Service That Feeds Your Soul

Another fun thing I heard about on breadblog.org...

The Social Cause Diet
Finding A Service That Feeds Your Soul

Here is a unique opportunity for anyone who has an amazing, humorous, or otherwise inspiring story to tell about a satisfying act of service. Author Gail Perry Johnston—with new publisher, Cupola Press—is requesting submissions for The Social Cause Diet: Finding A Service That Feeds Your Soul, slated for a release this summer.

The Social Cause Diet will feature everyday people giving of their time and efforts within the context of an established social service. Many people are willing to give of themselves but they do not know where to begin or realize that their interests and abilities match those of an existing organization. The range of stories collected in The Social Cause Diet will reveal that there are achievable, accessible, and satisfying ways for everyone to give.

See our guidelines and submit your story!

http://www.socialcausediet.com/index.htm

Letters to the Editor: Got Patience?

I want to get down a few words about writing letters to the editor (LTE's). I've been in this game now coming up on a year soon and sometimes it seems like forever. Most of the work is reading, skimming, searching for poverty news and op-eds to respond to...which can be few and far between when it has to compete with Britney (although it is picking up lately). Some of us in Bread for the World keep in touch with each other through email and breadblog.org, notifying each other when something juicy comes up to be responded to. We view ourselves as being part of a movement. We write so that many letters- ours combined with with those of members of ONE, Results and other advocacy orgs- will convince the editors of the newspapers that the issue is important enough to run a letter about it. On any given issue, my letter may not and probably will not run, but if I see someone else's anti-poverty message get in, I know that's because all of us helped put it there.

But what about getting my own voice in the national conversation? It can be pretty depressing and lonely work trying to get something printed in a national publication. A while ago, I was celebrating a printed letter to the editor of mine in the New York Times on-line. That was a really big deal to me. That came about after about 8 months of writing, 40 submitted LTE's, and I don't even know how many 1/2 written and abandoned ones. But it got in and that was a thrill! One that I owe to all the other writers who said about the same thing that I did that week.

In a way, I think this is the perfect kind of service work for me to be doing. Only when I consider myself as part of a movement does any of this make sense. This work has been for me a social justice outlet, a hobby, a writing exercise, and a lesson. A lesson in patience and humility. One that I could have benefitted from many years ago, but I gladly accept now.