Tag Archives: charities

how to deal with the swear jar

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swear jar:a jar full of money!so we have a bit of a question here, maybe you can help us.

about six months ago, we started a swear jar. whenever someone swears, they need to put money into the jar. a buck for adults, fifty cents for kids.

now, thanks partly (ok, well, mostly) to the colourful language of yours truly, we have a bit of money accumulated.

what to do with it?

here are five ideas we’ve come with up so far. which one would you recommend? do you have a different idea?

the first three start out with giving the money to charity. but what kind of charity?

  1. a charity that we all like, like the SPCA (society for protection of animals), or the BC cancer agency. an argument for that one would be: we transform something foul into something good. argument against: would it actually encourage swearing?
  2. a charity towards which we feel neutral and to which we would normally not give. say, the rhododendron growers of canada. actually, i quite like rhodos, but i have no passionate feelings one way or the other towards that non-profit organization. argument for: we would still give the money away, to a cause that is at least not unworthy, and at the same time we would not get any satisfaction from giving the money away, thus not creating reinforcement of the swearing
  3. an organization we definitely do not support. maybe there is something like “young nazis of america”, or some sort of homophobic organization. that way, next time one of us thinks about swearing, we’ll think twice, because we certainly don’t want to support these kinds of people.

two more, really variations on the ones above. they might have a bit more ooomph, though.

  1. give the money directly to a person/persons who we don’t want to support.
  2. give the money directly to a person/persons who we do want to support.

over to you: what’s your advice?

this is also my entry into island life’s how to group writing project, about which i found out on jacob’s group writing site. island life is in very good company, by the way: darren over at problogger did a group writing project with the same title two years ago.

here are other entries to that project so far:

(image by allie)

blogathon 2008: countdown to insomnia!

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on july 26, i will not sleep.

from 5 am to 5 am the next morning, i will be blogging.

yup, i’m participating in this year’s blogathon, a marathon in which selected bloggers such as raul and rebecca, bloggers participate to raise awareness and funds for their favourite charities.

for 24 hours, every 30 minutes, i’ll be posting a blog entry.

the charity i’ve selected is the canadian mental health association (vancouver/burnaby branch), an organization that i’ve been very proudly part of for the last three years. their mission statement is:

CMHA vancouver-burnaby promotes mental wellness and increases understanding of mental health issues through innovative and collaborative approaches in the areas of public education, accessible services and personal empowerment.

one of the reasons why i am so proud of this organization is that it really stands behind its mission statement. CMHA (van/bby) is doing fabulous and often groundbreaking work in areas such as employment counselling for people with mental health issues, recreation for children of parents with mental illness, and social enterprise (e.g. they have grown and mentored a successful janitorial company run and operated by people with often severe mental health issues).

even though i have no idea how i’ll manage to stay up for 24 hours, i’m very excited about this project, and hope lots and lots of you, my dear readers, will participate through reading, commenting and donating.

i think i’ll also have a prize. maybe one each for highest donation, most comments and most link love? what do you think?