What Causes Do You Support?

I like to support different causes, but I like to try to contribute by putting effort into a cause whenever I can. I like supporting my friends and family when they do the same, so I tend to contribute when the enter into charity events, like bike races, etc. I really respect people who get in there and work for a cause.

 

We give to a bunch of different local Jewish organizations, and a couple for promoting interfaith dialogue and progressive religious opposition to fundamentalism. We give to Planned Parenthood, PFLAG, MoveOn, Mazon: A Jewish Response To Hunger, IRAC (the Israeli Reform Action Committee), Magen David Adom (the Israeli version of the Red Cross), the Jewish National Fund, NPR, and we will usually also pick one or two organizations or movements that look good to us and give them one-off donations at the end of the year.

 

Day before yesterday, breaking into a building site to water abandoned ponies, I had to wriggle under a welded shut high gate to get in. There I lay for a moment, on my back and stuck - shouldnt have worn an uplift bra I said to the other lady. Every time you do something to help, something out of your ordinary life - its another chance for an adventure isnt it. I think the other lady was hoping I would need the local fire brigade with their jaws of - is it life or death? Poor bloody babys were huddled up against a fence nearest a stream where they could look upon it thirstily - but never reach it. Field is full of ragwort - which is poison to equines. No one gives a flying fuck except old ladies and small children, who were taking them water in a wheelbarrow today - another generation of up and coming good hearted people - does make you smile.

 

I am a homeless advocate here in Madison Wisconsin. This city, known worldwide for it's progressive, can-do University of Wisconsin, has one of the most dysfunctional homeless shelter systems in the country. They limit the number of nights (60) a person can stay in a shelter and provide very limited resources to these people to find jobs, housing, and any other needs they might have to get them off the streets. We had a daytime warming shelter for 5 months until it closed at the end of March, long before this cold winter has ended. Now there are more than 100 more people on the streets at night and more than 400 people on the streets during the day with no place to go. The attitude here seems to be NIMBY (not in my backyard.) I, along with several other advocates and support organizations, are preparing a plan to put forth to the city and county here for a 24 hour, 365 day shelter that would include all the resources and support services on-site necessary to productively help these people get on their feet and into their own backyards.