As I mentioned two days ago, we were off to the Movember Gala Parté last night. We had a great time and, as a result of our involvement in the event we have gotten to know some fantastic folks a lot better. Interesting how nice people are attracted to doing things for charity’s sake.

Our friend, John Biehler, participated in and won a video making contest sponsored by LG Electronics Canada. As you can see from the photo above, taken by Carol Browne, he was given a Happy Gilmore-esque novelty cheque for $5000. That’s a lot of cake to go to a great cause. Thank you very much LG and way to John.

What is charity?

Charity is “generous actions or donations to aid the poor, ill, or helpless; something given to a person or persons in need; alms; a charitable fund, foundation, or institution.” [source]

Even though times are tough people are still giving. In fact I mentioned that in my post about generosity a while back. Also, an interesting read, both post and comments, is this one, titled Do You Believe in Karma?, from Tanya of Bluefinch Creative here in Vancouver.

I like good karma.

Due to financial considerations we have had to rework our holiday giving. It has really made us think about things a little differently. I don’t know if we’ll ever go back to the old way of doing things. Even when I had a lot of money in the past it made me crazy. It just never felt right. Perhaps, as things improve financially, rather than give more stuff for Christmas why not give the money we would have spent to charity in the other people’s names and spend time spending time with and appreciating those folks.

Personally, I really like the idea of micro-lending mentioned in Tanya’s post. She mentioned one great site to get you started — kiva.org.

Here’s a video that describes how Kiva works:

A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.

This video follows the path of a $25 loan from London, England to Preak Tamao village, Cambodia. Kiva.org is a website that allows internet users like you or I to lend money to people that need it in developing countries, with the aim of empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.

I have already been approached about doing a post about quitnow.ca‘s challenge to smokers in BC to Quit Now and Win. That will be one of my next charitable projects.

Being charitable makes me feel good. Thank you charity!

Photo by Carol Browne on Flickr