Charity
Too much candy? Donate (some of it) to a good cause
Julie Tilsner
Nov 2nd 2009 at 3:45PM
Filed under: Kids and Money, Simplification, Charity
So Halloween's over and now you have bags of candy -- literally bags -- lying around promising to do some serious damage to your kids' teeth and your waistline. What to do? Eat it? Throw it away? Put it in the garage and forget about it? We at WalletPop think we've found an answer to this most vexing of parental dilemmas: Donate your extra bags of Halloween candy to a charitable cause.Send your extra candy overseas -- Several organizations send donations of all kinds to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Operation Gratitude will happily take your donations of extra bagged candy to distribute to troops (find more info about procedure here and scroll to the bottom of the page.). Operation Shoebox will take your candy - also any extra socks or old cell phones you care to donate.
Some local dentist offices will buy back your extra candy for $1 a pound, and ship it themselves to U.S. troops abroad. Check here to see if dentists in your area are offering this program.
Ronald McDonald House charities welcomes donations of your extra candy (provided it's in the original wrapper, of course). Check its website for specific giving policies at the Ronald McDonald House near you.
Your local Meals on Wheels charity, which takes meals to housebound seniors, will take your extra candy. Click here to find a local chapter.
As always, women's shelters, churches, synagogues and other places of worship will accept donations of extra candy. The PTA at your child's school may also be happy to have your (bagged) extra candy for use in harvest and holiday festivals.
Probably best to involve your kids in this operation, since while they won't object to sending half their candy to a worthy cause, they will definitely object to losing all of their swag.
Thanks to CoolMomPicks.
David Spade apologizes, sort of, for exploiting his dead buddy
Bruce Watson
Oct 30th 2009 at 1:45PM
Filed under: Charity, Relationships, Consumer Complaints, Celebs & Money, Ad Rant
When David Spade's tasteless DirecTV ad went out in late October, it was immediately hit with a hail of criticism.Writers, including our own Jami Bernard, were quick to point out that the commercial, which used footage from 1995's Tommy Boy, essentially came off as a cruel and shameless exploitation of deceased actor Chris Farley.
Although Spade has repeatedly stated that he considered the commercial a tribute to Farley, he recently told People magazine that "The movie is important to me, and I would hate to offend [anyone] because that's one of my favorite things I've ever done. So I would apologize to someone who took it that way." He went on to state that "I wouldn't want anyone to get a whiff that I'm trying to get something off Chris."
As Bernard pointed out on WalletPop, the Farley estate was complicit in the ad. Farley's brothers have already received $25,000 for a billboard bearing his likeness; presumably, they accepted a lot more cash for this ad.
Dentists will buy back your Halloween candy
Tom Barlow
Oct 30th 2009 at 12:00PM
Halloween trick or treat night night came early this year at our house, and thanks no doubt to the H1N1 flu scare, we were visited by very few ghosts and goblins. We were despairing (drooling) over the amount of candy left over to tempt us, until I discovered Halloween Candy Buy Back, a program by dentists to buy candy from kids and their parents and send it to soldiers overseas.Going to church pays off -- now instead of later
Tom Barlow
Oct 27th 2009 at 1:30PM
Filed under: Charity
The prospect of eventual salvation is sometimes less compelling than the immediate gratification of sleeping in on Sunday morning. An Alsip, Ill., minister has found a way to counter that impulse, however: pay parishioners to attend services at his church.
The Rev. Dan Davis of the Lighthouse Church of All Nations has been holding raffles for cash awards of $250 during his Sunday services for the past three weeks, and attendance has boomed to upwards of 2,000 per service, "reducing traffic outside of the church...to a standstill," according to Guy Tridgell of the Southtown Star.
Food Network's Sandra Lee: 'No way' smart shoppers should buy generic
Jason Cochran
Oct 23rd 2009 at 12:00PM
Filed under: Bargains, Food, Simplification, Charity, Celebs & Money, Video, Recession Diaries, Economizer
This Sunday evening, Food Network star Sandra Lee appears as a volunteer on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and she'll be pitching in to collect something she knows a lot about: canned foods.
Lee has crafted a mini-empire out of her DIY advice that teaches people to take economical shortcuts with pre-packaged foods. Her expertise runs from gardens to drapes -- she helms two Food Network shows, Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee and Sandra's Money Saving Meals, a magazine (Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade), and three recently released books, Weeknight Wonders, Money Saving Slow Cooking, and Cocktail Time. And, of course, on ABC this Sunday, when she helps re-make the lives of some dedicated community volunteers.
In a video chat with WalletPop's Jason Cochran, Lee talks candidly about her youth spent on food stamps and working in food banks with her grandmother.
Lee has crafted a mini-empire out of her DIY advice that teaches people to take economical shortcuts with pre-packaged foods. Her expertise runs from gardens to drapes -- she helms two Food Network shows, Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee and Sandra's Money Saving Meals, a magazine (Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade), and three recently released books, Weeknight Wonders, Money Saving Slow Cooking, and Cocktail Time. And, of course, on ABC this Sunday, when she helps re-make the lives of some dedicated community volunteers.
In a video chat with WalletPop's Jason Cochran, Lee talks candidly about her youth spent on food stamps and working in food banks with her grandmother.
Redo the kitchen first, says "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" carpenter Paul DiMeo
Jason Cochran
Oct 16th 2009 at 12:00PM
Filed under: Home, Charity, Celebs & Money, Video
Paul DiMeo is the staff carpenter on ABC's long-running tearjerker real estate hit Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and he knows a little something about building cool stuff in a crunch. For seven seasons now, he's swept into the lives of needy or deserving American families and granted them the gift of their lives: a whole new house in a week.
This Sunday, DiMeo and the crew on the bus pull into Texas, where they help a family who moved into a fixer-upper, intending to renovate it, when disaster struck. Unable to afford a change, they were stuck with a real estate lemon. In this recession, it's happened to a lot of us.
So if you don't have a lot of money to make over your own house, where you should start? DiMeo has two answers for that budget quandary. The first answer is the kitchen, a room that promises a lot of bang for the buck because families tend to spend a lot of their time there. But if a reinvention of that single room is too rich for your blood, DiMeo has an even cheaper suggestion of where your dollar can go the furthest.
DiMeo, who is spending a rare week at his own home, phoned WalletPop's Jason Cochran by Skype this week to talk to him about the upcoming episode and to dispense a few nuggets of renovation wisdom. And what room does DiMeo spent the most time in? You may regret asking.
This Sunday, DiMeo and the crew on the bus pull into Texas, where they help a family who moved into a fixer-upper, intending to renovate it, when disaster struck. Unable to afford a change, they were stuck with a real estate lemon. In this recession, it's happened to a lot of us.
So if you don't have a lot of money to make over your own house, where you should start? DiMeo has two answers for that budget quandary. The first answer is the kitchen, a room that promises a lot of bang for the buck because families tend to spend a lot of their time there. But if a reinvention of that single room is too rich for your blood, DiMeo has an even cheaper suggestion of where your dollar can go the furthest.
DiMeo, who is spending a rare week at his own home, phoned WalletPop's Jason Cochran by Skype this week to talk to him about the upcoming episode and to dispense a few nuggets of renovation wisdom. And what room does DiMeo spent the most time in? You may regret asking.
Cheaper than ever to name a building for charity
Josh Smith
Oct 13th 2009 at 12:00PM
There's a fire sale on naming buildings across the country. Wait, strike that, fire sale might not be the best phrase to describe naming a new library or outpatient wing; perhaps "clearance on immortality at charities nationwide" is a better fit. Over the last year, thanks to the economy; we've lost close to 100 billionaires, 18.5% of our millionaires and the number of gifts of more than a million dollars have been cut in half. According to Bloomberg, this is the reason that numerous charities are in the process of scaling back the donation amount required to name a building and giving donors more time to pay off pledges.
Music star Xzibit pitches in on 'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition'
Jason Cochran
Oct 9th 2009 at 1:30PM
Filed under: Extracurriculars, Home, Charity, Celebs & Money, Video
Hip-hop star Xzibit knows a thing or two about turning lemons into lemonade. He's widely known as the host of MTV's Pimp My Ride, in which hum-drum vehicles are souped up and become the envy of a national viewing audience.
But this Sunday night on ABC, Xzibit goes from pimping rides to making dreams come true. This season, the massive hit Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is tapping celebrity volunteers to pitch in for its one-week house building whirlwinds. Xzibit, a native of Detroit, hit Connecticut with Ty Pennington and his crew to help the Hill family.
Xzibit called WalletPop by Skype, and Jason Cochran was there to talk to the recording star live in his home (check out the gold record behind him!) to find out why such a star is spending his time shoveling dirt and slogging through flooded basements, and if he really did the backbreaking work on EM:HE, or if it was just for the cameras.
The economy has been particularly brutal for the Hills, and in their effort to stay a step ahead of homeless shelters and soup kitchens, 13 assorted members, some of them cousins, cram into a house designed for fewer than half their number.
The basement is swamped and the closet has been turned into a makeshift bathroom, still the Hills remain optimistic. But when Xzibit shows up on the bus, the Hills' excitement is uncontainable, and they come barreling from their little house in an explosive celebration for redemption unlike any seen on the show so far. He learned in an instant why it's so important to make a difference these days.
But this Sunday night on ABC, Xzibit goes from pimping rides to making dreams come true. This season, the massive hit Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is tapping celebrity volunteers to pitch in for its one-week house building whirlwinds. Xzibit, a native of Detroit, hit Connecticut with Ty Pennington and his crew to help the Hill family.
Xzibit called WalletPop by Skype, and Jason Cochran was there to talk to the recording star live in his home (check out the gold record behind him!) to find out why such a star is spending his time shoveling dirt and slogging through flooded basements, and if he really did the backbreaking work on EM:HE, or if it was just for the cameras.
The economy has been particularly brutal for the Hills, and in their effort to stay a step ahead of homeless shelters and soup kitchens, 13 assorted members, some of them cousins, cram into a house designed for fewer than half their number.
The basement is swamped and the closet has been turned into a makeshift bathroom, still the Hills remain optimistic. But when Xzibit shows up on the bus, the Hills' excitement is uncontainable, and they come barreling from their little house in an explosive celebration for redemption unlike any seen on the show so far. He learned in an instant why it's so important to make a difference these days.
Want to simplify your life? Let me count the (50) ways
Marlene Alexander
Sep 22nd 2009 at 8:00AM
Filed under: Simplification, Health, Charity
Third Age has created a list of 50 ways to leave your clutter, both physically and emotionally. Basically, it comes down to A) identifying what's most important to you, and B) eliminating everything else.
That's the short list, and I'm not going to delve into all 50 points in the long list, but here are a few of the valid points made that we could all learn from. The writer suggests focusing on one point at a time among the ones that appeal to you, personally, and when you're done with that one, move on to the next.
At the top of the list, it is suggested and I agree that prioritizing is a must. What are the top four or five most important things in your life? Focus on the activities, hobbies and/or side businesses that you love doing and drop whatever doesn't line up with those activities.
Point 14 encourages us to create a simplicity statement that details what we want our simple life to look like and then write it down. As point 18 suggests, don't forget to include loved ones in your plan.
Time management is essential. I know I've been guilty of wasting time on frivolous tasks rather than focusing on my priorities. Points three to six encourage us to think about all the stuff we do at home and at work and do only essential tasks. Try to eliminate all the other stuff by automating, delegating or hiring help. Some people can't say "no" and so take on too much. Remember your list of priorities.
Racing for a Rooooffff
Ann Brenoff
Sep 19th 2009 at 9:00AM
Filed under: Real Estate, Charity
There are four-legged victims of the real estate foreclosure crisis too. Animal shelters report that owner turn-ins have reached an all-time high as families lose their homes and are forced to move -- often to rentals that don't accept Fido and Fluffy. But the pets who wind up at shelters are sometimes the luckier ones, says Realtor Sandy Zalagens, a Keller Williams agent based in Los Angeles who says she is sickened by all the dogs she finds tied up in backyards, just left behind often without so much as a bowl of food or water. "Realtors are on the front lines," she said, "The owners move out and we find them."
Zalagans is the force behind the Keller Williams team that is participating in the Race for the Rescues on Oct. 4 at the Pasadena Rose Bowl. The 5K race organized by The Rescue Train hopes to raise as much money as possible.
Zalagans' office alone has set its target on raising $1 million. Zalagans has long been known as the dog-rescuing Realtor in Los Angeles. She offers a free rescue dog to each buyer of a home she sells (they must qualify for not only the mortgage, but for dog ownership as well -- often much tougher standards to meet). For those who can't take the dog, she sponsors it in the name of the buyer out of her sales commission until a home is found.
For details on the race, click here.
Homeless bloggers scores 'fairy tale' job for Elle; I say 'scullery wages'
Sarah Gilbert
Sep 1st 2009 at 4:00PM
The headline is glowing with goodwill. "Jobless and homeless, bloggers scores Elle job," it reads. The first paragraphs are heavy with the conscious potential: could this be the next ripped-from-the-headlines romantic comedy? "Six months ago, Brianna Karp found herself living in an old truck and camper she inherited after the suicide of a father she barely knew. On Monday, her life became a 21st century fairytale when she turned her blog about homelessness into a plum internship for the fashion bible Elle magazine."It's great, really, that Brianna turned hard work, a talent for writing, plenty of Twittering and a lucky email to Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll into an internship. Carroll answered her letter in the mag and, wonder of wonders!, offered her the most "hideously humdrum internship in America," helping with her upcoming book, "transcribing interviews, and analyzing data from 1,800,000 pages (not a misprint) of a college sex survey I did on Facebook" for six hours a week.
Is sending an e-mail worth a penny to stop spam?
Aaron Crowe
Aug 21st 2009 at 9:00AM
Filed under: Technology, Charity
A plan by Yahoo to have its e-mail users voluntarily pay a penny for each e-mail they send to help cut down on spam may test the limits of how much -- if anything -- people are willing to pay for anything on the Internet that is already free.Even the lowly penny may be too much too much for people to pay in an age when newspapers are trying to stop giving away their product online, and a book titled "Free" is a New York Times bestseller that promotes the free model as a smart business strategy.
People may be slowly agreeing to pay for more things online that used to be free, and micropayments are becoming a hot topic, but free speech associated with e-mail may just push it a little too far.
Coupon site helps consumers, charities
Aaron Crowe
Aug 20th 2009 at 5:30PM
Filed under: Saving Money, Shopping, Charity
There are plenty of coupon sites on the Internet, but one of the latest to go up lets users pick charities that the Web site will give money for printing its coupons.CommonKindness has a stimulus plan of its own by donating 60% of its profits to charities and causes selected by people who visit the site and clip coupons. The site went live this month.
A recession is a perfect time to launch a coupon Web site, as more people look for ways to save money, said Calandra Cruickshank, president of CommonKindness and one of two moms who started the site.
"Everybody's watching their pennies and trying to figure out how to make a dollar last longer," Cruickshank said in a telephone interview from Big Indian, N.Y.
"Consumers really want to give back. They want to support their local nonprofit," she said.
God says: You're not rich (yet)
Sarah Gilbert
Aug 18th 2009 at 9:00AM
Filed under: Ripoffs and Scams, Charity
If you're not rich yet: it's because God doesn't want you to be. No, instead, he wants the leaders of the sort of "Christianity" known as "prosperity gospel" to be rich. If that means you have to eat peanut butter & jelly sandwiches so you can help pay for the pastor's Citation X private airplane, well, so be it.
And thanks to the spiritual version of the Ponzi scheme (which reminds me of the "dispensations" bought by Medieval believers), followers of Kenneth and Gloria Copeland believe they will receive special prayers if they send the duo enough money.
And that will lead to prosperity for the 386,000 "partners," according to this doctrine. If you believe that the Copelands have time every day to pray for 386,000 people's wealth, and that money can buy you God's favor, in turn bringing you more money -- well, I have a position on the "Elite CX Team" to sell you.
Save box tops, help your kid's school
Marlene Alexander
Aug 11th 2009 at 8:00AM
Filed under: Kids and Money, Saving Money, Shopping, Charity, School
Box Tops For Education is a concept that has helped American schools to earn more than $300 million in the past 12 years. The idea is to save the box tops from participating General Mills products and send them to the school of your choice.
The program is open to any accredited public, private or parochial school containing any class with students from kindergarten to grade eight.
To participate, the school must be registered in the Box Tops For Education program and each school must designate a school coordinator in order to be enrolled. See the official rules for full details.
