Kitchen Philanthropy

Kitchen Philanthropy

I decided to assuage my guilt by giving money to various charities. I was not going to actually volunteer to work there but I figured anything would count, even money. 

I picked my favorite concerns: helping starving people around the world, and helping save animals from abuse and misery. I sent my first check in and felt like a generous philanthropist. (I am not revealing how much I gave to anyone.)

Within a week or two I was inundated with a stream of papers. For most of these there is no “do not share name or address.” I found myself buried in the waves of literature and Stuff. I was awash in the outflow of the “charity-industrial complex.”

This is not a complaint, I’m certainly not asking for sympathy. I am just amazed at how much energy and material I received because I participated in charity. 

First was the literature, written with high emotion: CRISIS! URGENT! DESPERATE!  ABANDONED!  ABUSED! The solicitations contained heartbreaking stories of dying animals and people. Dogs beaten and left to die! Horses sent to slaughterhouses for their meat! Innocent little donkeys neglected and brutalized! Orphaned refugee children, Native elders frozen to death…if I read all the literature it blended into one endless scream. How could I not give? These were real, not fictional. 

Next, the charities sent me a dizzying variety of tokens, usually with the message of “how could you not give, now that we’ve sent you this calendar?” I received, paid or unpaid for: Calendars, world maps, “petitions,” “vouchers,” “surveys,” “membership” cards (I received eight Audubon Society cards for one membership), refrigerator magnets, pens, little note pads, a calculator, a manicure kit, tote bags, colorful socks and gloves, coins, a very soft grey blanket, childrens’ trinkets, and dozens of other “we gave you this” solicitations. And most of all was the “free gift,” which was always and everywhere…decorative address labels. Like the snowflakes of winter, the petals of spring, the seeds of summer and the golden leaves of fall, myriad repetitions of my hateful name, address labels by the hundreds, by the thousands. If I had kept them all they would fill my entire kitchen. They were decorated with animals, children’s drawings, mountain scenes, crabs, (I received five copies of  “Save the Bay”), eagles, patriotic motifs, in an endless stream. I wondered how many it would take to use in a campaign mailing. No, I’m not running for anything, except kitchen philanthropist. Can you imagine how many solicitations a real philanthropist with millions of dollars gets? And the small change coins affixed to the gift form paper, I probably have a few dollars' worth by now. And everything was “personified” with The H-Name I Hate.

Lest you think I have become deluded into giving my money into false or wrong charities, I set limits on all my giving. I toss most of them into the trash. I won’t tell you how I judge which one worthy, but I have been seen stuffing the hatch of my car with paper recycling. Those politicians are not going to respond in sympathy to abused little donkeys, and I’m not answering fake “surveys” which are only propaganda. And as soon as they received my donation, they asked for more - naturally…and they wanted me to give every month, too.

URGENT! DEADLINE ! IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED! CRISIS! CRISIS! YOUR GIFT WILL BE MATCHED BY A DONATION…They’ve taken to having their gifts matched in  modest or unreasonable amounts. I have no idea whether that is real or not, or whether any of this is real. Again…have I cast all my money into some corrupt scheme? I have noticed that most of the animal rescue concerns originate from a single post office box address in Merrifield, Virginia. Hey, that’s literally around the corner from me! Should I visit?

My kitchen is full of papers. I am not feeding the hungry here and frankly I don’t know whether any of my payments get anywhere near the starving children. How many has my money fed? How much success is there? I would imagine that very few out of the thousands are eating because of me. But, well, let’s think of the proverbial man on the beach surrounded by stranded starfish. He is throwing them back into the sea so they can survive, one by one. A kid comes up to him and asks what he’s doing. On hearing about his mission, the kid says, But there are millions of them. It won’t matter how many you save. And the man answers as he throws another starfish back, “It mattered to that one.”