Spending all this time lately thinking about the cool ways people give of themselves to change the world is changing the way I experience the holiday season. It's making me want to give more than just a tie to Uncle Fritz or the latest video games to my teenage sons. (Sorry, boys.)
The media is of course awash with gift-giving ideas right now, but if you want something different, we'd like to share some of the cool things we've run across. These are gifts that enrich even the people who (luckily) have everything. Plus they add to your global citizen street cred.
First up: the White Envelope Project, inspired by two parents who made it a tradition to give their children a white envelope each year with a note inside, saying a gift was made to a nonprofit. It wasn't in lieu of other presents, but it became the most anticipated one. The kids grew up and founded this organization to spread their parents' idea for giving. (Good job, parents.)
As a family, we've made it a (sporadic) habit to pull names off a local Giving Tree, or volunteer to sponsor a family who wouldn't have much of a Christmas without some help. The White Envelope Project, as described here in Daily Good, sounds like just the kind of holiday tradition I would love for my children to pass along to their children. Thanks to Nipun and those Daily Good writers for sharing such a wonderful story.
A friend (thanks, Jennifer!) alerted us to World of Good, the latest in what seems like a wonderful profusion of retailers that sell beautiful Fair Trade gifts.
And of course, Liz still says one of the best gifts she ever received was a certificate to use on Kiva.org, a lending site that hooks up even the smallest of investors with entrepreneurs in developing countries. (In related news, we're publishing an interview this week with the founder of MicroPlace, which is similar to Kiva, except investors earn interest. Details to come.)
We're not about to halt American consumerism in one blog post. Heck, the economy might really tank if we did. But we love learning about ways to give that really feel like giving of ourselves, and we love sharing them with you, too. Happy holidays.
We couldn't agree more, Mackenzie! We'll be posting with more information about One Laptop Per Child very soon.
Posted by: Liz | December 05, 2007 at 02:52 PM
I don't think there is a better blog to respond to with this info:
One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
One learning child. One connected child. One laptop at a time.
The mission of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child. In order to accomplish our goal, we need people who believe in what we’re doing and want to help make education for the world’s children a priority, not a privilege.
http://laptopgiving.org/en/index.php
I personally think that technology and education are the simplest and most effective way to improve life in developing countries.
Posted by: Mackenzie | December 05, 2007 at 02:45 PM