Tag Fundraising

Orange is the New Gold

Michael Leave a comment
Sunday November 3 was the coldest Sunday since spring had sprung some 7 months earlier. And what was I getting ready for at 6:30 that morning? I was going for a walk, a Kidney Walk at of all places, the Pittsburgh Zoo.
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This particular Sunday stroll was in support of the National Kidney Foundation, and organization in support of kidney disease education, treatment, and support. Like so many other disease focused organizations, money raised by the NKF goes to research for treatment and to find a cure for kidney disease. But it also provides direct assistance to those suffering the disease right now by assisting patients, families, and caregivers through resources including health checks and screenings, drug discount programs, and peer support made possible by fundraising activities.
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Since I had begun chronic dialysis 3 years ago I recieved helped from the National Kidney Foundation but was never able to show my support for the organization. For the first time since my diagnosis my entire immediate family was able to register for the walk. The Kidney Walk does not carry an “entrance fee” nor a “suggested donation.” Your entry fee is your willingness to show support. Your donation is what you want to give or can raise from friends and family to support your personal cause. This year 2300 Pittsburgh walkers raised over $255,000 for those causes and I’m happy to report that my family was responsible for one of those thousands. Walkers included kidney transplant recipients, kidney donors, dialysis patients, care providers, and those many friends and family members on foot, in wheelchairs and strollers, with the help of canes and walkers, and even physically carried by others.
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Unlike many others walking I was diagnosed without any of the classic risk factors or warning signs. The major risk factors for kidney disease are high blood pressure and diabetes; family history and obesity are also major contributors to that risk. Some of the common early warning signs include nausea and vomiting, irregular heartbeats, pain in the lower back, and shortness of breath. I had and still have none of those. My kidney disease is caused by complications from an autoimmune disease and was revealed through routine lab studies at regular checkups. Like many walkers I doubted I would ever find myself relying on dialysis for life or undergoing a kidney transplant. And most unfortunately like many other walkers I found myself both of those. Most fortunately though, my disease was discovered and I was able to join in the walk.
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Orange was the color of the day at the zoo. Although kidney disease awareness is typically represented by a green ribbon, the National Kidney Foundation has adopted orange and black as the organization colors. Orange shirts, hoodies, caps, backpacks, and even baby strollers marched on a three mile trek among the animals at the Pittsburgh Zoo to bring awareness to chronic kidney disease, a disease that affects nearly 40 million American adults with another 200,000 diagnosed each year.  Over 800,000 of those patient are in end stage renal failure requiring dialysis or a kidney transplant.
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To us it doesn’t matter what color was worn. The money raised is the gold at the end of the rainbow. 
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Different Potpourri du Different Jour

Michael Leave a comment

Yesterday completed the year-long fundraising effort by Penn State’s Pan-Hellenic Council to benefit the Four Diamonds Fund at Hershey Medical Center children’s cancer unit – or more lovingly known by the PSU crowd as “Thon.” The pinnacle event is the weekend long dance marathon with the fundraising reveal wrapping up the festivities. This year Thon raised over $9.77 million dollars for the charity, still the world’s largest student run philanthropy. Thon typically runs on about a 4% administrative cost. That means that 96 cents of each one of those dollars goes to the charity. Compare this to the American Cancer Society, no slouch in fund-raising themselves, who manage to work on about 84% costs netting their charity efforts 16 cents for each dollar raised. It would do us well to remember that the student can sometimes be the teacher.

I was standing in the super market line and saw this blurb on one of the magazines that festoon the check-out lines. “Lose weight and gain height with new diet!” It went on to claim one could lose 5 pounds in weight and gain 2 inches in height in the first week. It could just be me but I’m suspecting some monkey business with those figures. I think it is quite possible to lose 5 pounds in a week but I can’t figure out any diet that adds heights, unless it’s to eat anything but eat it while being stretched on a rack.

Speaking of diets, a different cover screamed at me that I could lose weight just by cutting out sugar. I’ll remember that while I’m gorging on french fries and cole slaw while scarfing up double bacon cheeseburgers and washing it all down with several bottles of beer. If figure if I do that 4 or 5 times a week I can positively disappear by the end of next month.

Speaking of french fries, shouldn’t it really be frenched fries referring to manner in which they are cut. What became of the “ed?” I wonder if that was what the potato lost when it eliminated sugar from its diet.

And speaking of nothing that we’ve already spoken of, Spring is really around the corner. It was a balmy(!) 55 degrees this afternoon and I spotted my first non-fat guy wearing shorts. There is no surer sign that spring is here.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Just Causes Just Because

Michael Leave a comment

About this time of year the local newspapers run a story or two about a young citizen making like a mature adult as he or she completes a senior project and raises a few dollars for a local charity.  Such is the case of a teen local to us who raised about $1500 for the Save Darfur effort, joining millions since 2003 who have poured millions of dollars into the lobbying effort to solicit U.S. intervention.

So it was a pleasant morning when She of We read about a local college student joining the Push America’s Journey of Hope effort to raise $600,000 for Americans with disabilities and He of We read an article about a sixteen year old high school sophomore starting her own effort to raise $8,000 for a local homeless shelter. 

What makes these pleasant?  These kids had no program to make, no project to complete, and knew of what they were getting into.  It’s possible that a high school senior knows about the atrocities of Darfur.  Plug in a liberal social studies teacher and it’s even probable.  It’s equally possible that a high school senior knows the money doesn’t go to on the ground efforts in Darfur but to professional lobbyists in Washington to try to convince Congress to provide support from the national coffers.  But for a high school sophomore to just decide to ask her fellow studies for money for a homeless shelter that’s a good dozen miles from her suburban home “just because” is quite remarkable.  Equally remarkable is for a young man to take an entire summer off from gainful employment or youthful enjoyment to ride a bicycle across the country to raise money for disabled Americans a mile at a time.

Giving money, time, and energy is nothing new for the young.  Often it’s because of their energy and time that youthful philanthropy can far outraise established charities.  For example, Penn State University’s annual Thon dance marathon, the largest student run philanthropy in the world, raised over $10.5 million dollars this year for research to combat pediatric cancer.

Whether measured in millions, the hundreds of thousands, or the thousands of dollars a quarter at a time, these children and young adults show they have the maturity that is missing in so much “professional” fundraising efforts of good cause from fighting genocide to rebuilding from natural disasters.  The problem with professional philanthropy like Safe Darfur, Katrina Fundraising, and Tsunami Relief Organization is that so much of the effort has been built around the administration of the money raised that a lot goes to the professionals and a little to the philanthropy.

It seems that the fundraisers that ask for a quarter at a time make more of that money, if not all of that money go to the people whose pictures are on the donation cans.  Maybe the professionals should step aside and like the young people take over.  They’re going to eventually.  Let them start helping those who really need our help. 

Maybe then we’ll have something more interesting for them to take over.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?