Give Your Creativity To Charity

While searching information on The Volunteer Day, I’ve bumped into several stories of charity projects that are done in unique ways; ways that are not commonly seen or heard before, and apparently these acts of kindness are working successfully aside from being just amazing. Take a look.

• Free Rice Game

Imagine you’re playing a game over the internet, and each time you win, you’re donating 10 grains of rice to the poor in the world. This online game’s called the Free Rice.

FreeRice.com, the brainchild of 50-year-old U.S. computer programmer John Breen, was launched on Oct. 7 and has produced a mountain of rice for the United Nations’ World Food Programme in little more than a month.

On its inaugural day, the online game totalled 830 grains of donated rice. The Internet community quickly caught on and donated more than 77 million grains of rice on Nov. 8 alone — equivalent to more than seven million online clicks.”Every grain of rice is essential in the fight against hunger,” Josette Sheeran, WFP executive director said in a statement.”

FreeRice really hits home how the Web can be harnessed to raise awareness and funds for the world’s number one emergency. The site is a viral marketing success story with more than one billion grains of rice donated in just one month to help tackle hunger worldwide.”

The site contains a custom-built database comprising thousands of words at varying degrees of difficulty: venom, insomnia, formidable, arborescent, incognizant, cronyism, fitful, etc. Each time users choose the correct definition of the word, the site’s sponsors — which include Macy’s, American Express, Apple, Toshiba and Office Depot — donate funds to WFP to pay for 10 grains of rice.

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• Oprah’s 24 Random Act of Kindness

It’s the littlest things that counts. On February 2005, Oprah published a list of 24 Random Acts of Kindness in her O Magazine –and since it’s Oprah, we’d prefer to believe she written it herself instead of “have the publicity made”. Until this day, the list has been forwarded through emails and bulletin boards as “Oprah’s 24 Act of Kindness”. How about your own?

January:
Adopt your new coworker, take her to lunch and make yourself available for any little question she has.
If someone says flattering things about your friends, don’t hesitate to let them know they have fans.

February:
On Valentine’s Day, call your single friends just to say, “Hello.”
If a waiter or a manicurist or plumber does an especially good job, let them know. Even better, let their boss know.

March:
Honk your horn only to prevent a car accident.
Resist the temptation to lash out when you’re in a bad mood.

April:
Get back in touch with someone who once meant something to you, if only to tell her she made an impact.
Offer to share your cab from the train station on a rainy evening.

May:
If you come across a funny childhood picture of you and your brother, send him a framed copy.
If you’re out of gift ideas for a friend’s birthday, making her favorite dessert will always trump a gift certificate.

June:
Spend an afternoon with an elderly family member doing whatever makes her happiest.
Forgive loud teenagers.

July:
Help a friend move.
At a wedding, never ask a single woman how her love life is going.

August:
Asking for help is never easy. If someone you love needs a favor, agree if at all possible.
Be generous with sincere compliments.

September:
At your child’s soccer game cheer whenever a goal is scored — even if it’s by the other team.
When someone is speaking, offer her 100% of your attention.

October:
If the gym is crowded, switch machines after each set when you’re lifting weights.
Introduce yourself to the grocery checkout clerk, and start calling him by name.

November:
Patronize local businesses instead of jam-packed megastores.
Forward funny emails, but refrain from sending chain messages.

December:
Tip very well.
Release the grudge. It irks you beyond words, we know. But it’s a tiny thing. Let it go.

Read it in O Magazine official website.

• Radiohead’s In Rainbow

Radiohead just released their album on the October 10th, and guess how much they cost their listeners for it? Okay, cheaper? 20% discount for charity? Nope. The price is totally up to you! You decide how much you’re willing to pay for it. You could even ask for free. How does this help in a charitable way? Well, all I can say is if you’re a musical idealist, you’d figure out the philosophy somehow.

While many industry observers speculated that Radiohead might go off-label for its seventh album, it was presumed the band would at least rely on Apple’s iTunes or United Kingdom-based online music store 7digital for distribution. Few suspected the band members had the ambition (or the server capacity) to put an album out on their own. The final decision was apparently made just a few weeks ago, and, when informed of the news on Sunday, several record executives admitted that, despite the rumors, they were stunned. “This feels like yet another death knell,” emailed an A&R executive at a major European label. “If the best band in the world doesn’t want a part of us, I’m not sure what’s left for this business.”

Labels can still be influential and profitable by focusing on younger acts that need their muscle to get radio play and placement in record stores — but only if the music itself remains a saleable commodity. “That’s the interesting part of all this,” says a producer who works primarily with American rap artists. “Radiohead is the best band in the world; if you can pay whatever you want for music by the best band in the world, why would you pay $13 dollars or $.99 cents for music by somebody less talented? Once you open that door and start giving music away legally, I’m not sure there’s any going back.”

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• Six-String Masterpieces

Six-String Masterpieces is an art guitar auction benefitting “Little Kids Rock”, an organization committed to bringing free musical instruments and music education to public school children. The program that was carried out May this year features illustrations, drawings, and scribbles –all hand-painted on Dean ML guitars– from Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins, Moby, Tom Morello, and my personal favourite painter, Mark Ryden. Photo below.

Six-String Masterpieces official website.

• Chuck Feeney’s Secret

This particular story might sound like one of those spamjunk mails of some fictive prince or princess or an accountant from a small country in Africa or wherever just decided to give you someone’s inheritance. This one is for real though. Chuck Feeney is the co-founder of the world’s largest duty-free retail chain. Chuck Feeney doesn’t have a house or a car, on the other hand, he gives away his wealth in strict secrecy.

Journalist Conor O’Clery’s new book “The Billionaire Who Wasn’t: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune” (Public Affairs $26.95), reveals that Feeney may be destined to go down in history as one of the greatest American philanthropists.

Witty, self-deprecating, frugal and astute, Feeney was listed by Forbes Magazine in 1988 as the 23rd richest American alive and worth $1.3 billion, richer than Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump. He wasn’t.

Four years earlier, Feeney had placed most of his money in charitable foundations.

Inspired by the great 19th century philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, Feeney helped fund schools, hospitals, universities, medical research and human rights from the United States and Ireland to South Africa and Vietnam.

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• The Driving School

It isn’t really a driving school, but it’s a school in a car. Bintang Mobil is a SUV car geared up with electricity generator, a camp (tenda lipat), 29-inch TV and screen projector. There are three types of car, a car for Health or Bintang Sehat, for Science or Bintang IPTEK, and for Technology or Bintang Hi-Tech. Each has its own specific set-ups, for instance in the Health car, there are medical equipments for eye and dental examination; Technology car has computers with internet connection and a copy machine; Science car provides laboratorium utensils for chemistry, biology and physics class. The cars also holds supply of books and schooling aplliances for the students. The project that brings along a team of educators, volunteers, and voluntary college students will assist students located in Aceh Darussalam province, specifically in post-tsunami concentration areas. Bintang Mobil is a project coordinated by Yayasan Mitra Mandiri (Indonesia) and sponsored by BMW Indonesia. The cars will head off to Aceh this December.

Sebelum diberangkatkan ke Aceh, pada hari ini, Selasa (19/12) dua unit BINTANG Mobil Belajar – Bintang Sehat dan Bintang Hi-Tech – diuji cobakan penggunaannya di Sekolah Menengah Pertama (SMP) Tugu Bhakti di daerah Plumpang, Jakarta Utara. Sekolah yang memiliki 70 murid SMP ini tidak memiliki fasilitas laboratorium.

Uji coba BINTANG Sehat diawali dengan pemberian materi mengenai kesehatan gigi oleh drg. Fredy, yang selanjutnya secara bergilir murid-murid diberi kesempatan untuk cek kesehatan gigi dan umum. Sementara 35 anak yang berada di BINTANG Hi-Tech, sebelum praktek langsung menggunakan komputer, mereka diajarkan terlebih dahulu materi dasar komputer oleh fasilitator.

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Charity is ideally an act where presence of heart exists, and where there is presence of heart, thus there is presence of mind. As Henry A. Russo said: Giving is more of dictate of the heart rather than a command of the brain. We’ve seen too much zealousness in our society which makes us wonder which ones the needy, as we seek superiority of our own pitiful selves in the eyes of the less fortunate ones. But have all of us share enough time and effort to create changes with the noblety of our own mind?

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

– Mahatma Gandhi

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