Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Paralyzed with Helping, Part I

So a couple of weeks ago, I went into this huge rant about public schools and how we as in the government we is trying to do things to help the school system but it instead hampers them and weighs them down with unnecessary red tape and not enough funding to clear the red tape and help the kids out at the same time. I even wrote quite a lot of paragraphs about it for the blog, but, because what was starting as an articulate rant ended up as an inarticulate gurgle of fury directed at anyone in charge not seeing the problem. Lots of vigorous head shaking and unexplainable frustration weren't really gonna get my point across.

Which brings me to my point. There is an organization that is doing something about helping our kids, and that I enjoy helping very much. Here's the problem. I recently came into a little money as part of my departed grandmother's estate (I haven't talked much about her or that experience either, well I have, just not in this space. I wanted to keep that experience of losing her separate from what I'm doing in this space). So Fighting Nun said that any devices I had for the money were my own. Part of that money went into a project for the house (buying my awesome dog Kissinger a doggie door so he can get in and out of the patio easily). It's a piddly thing to use the inheritance on, but I don't think my grandmother would mind. So now I have 40 dollars left over, and I'm paralyzed as to what to do with it. I've thought about spending it on myself, but I'll just buy crap and I'd like to do something nice in my grandmother's memory, so I'm thinking of earmarking that money for a project on Donor's Choose.

Thing is, I can't decide which project to give my money to. There's so many good ones, and I'm paralyzed with the choosing and the helping, and also asking other people to help and get the project I pick on the ground and rolling for these kids. So I'm leaving it up to my two readers to help me decide. Right now, I'm leaning to these two projects: Marin Headlands Camping and Bay Area Kids Experiencing the sea around them. I'll make my decision soon, but any ideas would be appreciated.

No comments: