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June 2, 2011

U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 4:53 pm

The U. S. Marine Corps Reserve has a sixty odd year old program to collect toys for tots from needy families both in the United States and in other countries. The goal is to collect new unwrapped toys during October, November and December every year and then give those toys out as Christmas presents to disadvantaged children in the community in which the campaign is being conducted.

Their objective is to bring a message of hope to disadvantaged children in order to encourage them to become ‘responsible, productive, patriotic citizens’ in the words of their web site.

One of the foremost aims of Toys for Tots is to unite the communities where U.S Marine Reserve units are stationed for the three months of October, November and December every year in the gathering and distribution of new toys to children from less well-off families in order to help them experience the joys of Christmas.

One of the hopes is that the recollection of receiving these presents every year will encourage the kids to appreciate the communities where they live and take an dynamic part in those communities when they get older.

Communities where there is no unit of U.S. marine Corps Reserves can also take part in the program but they should first register for authorization. These non-Marine organizations will usually, but not always, be ex-Marines.

These groups organize fund-raising events throughout the year in order to finance the acquisition of new toys since donations of new toys do not always meet the organizations’ needs. These fund-raising events can include sports days, golfing tournaments, bicycle races, swimming tournaments et cetera.

Toys for Tots began in 1947 when Major Bill Hendricks, USCR and a group of Marine Reservists in Los Angeles collected and distributed 5,000 toys for needy children in the local area.

The original concept sprang from Major Hendrick’s wife, Diane, who had made a doll for a deprived child. She gave it to her husband to give to a suitable charity. When he could not find one, she suggested that he start one himself, so he did just that.

The following year Marine Corps Reserve units across the country adopted the plan and it has been actively providing toys to disadvantaged tots ever since. Walt Disney got involved from the very beginning by designing the logo that the Marine Reserve charity still makes use of today.

Other celebrities to become involved in the early days were Nat ‘King’ Cole, Peggy Lee and Vic Damone, who recorded the Toys for Tots theme, which was written especially for the charity by Sammy Fain and Paul Webster.

Numerous celebrities have been played a part during the years. People like Bob Hope, John Wayne, Doris Day, Lorrie Morgan, Tim Allen, Kenny Rogers and Billy Ray Cyrus. First Lady Nancy Reagan acted as the national Spokesperson in 1983 and First Lady Barbara Bush served as the national Spokesperson in 1992. She wrote in her autobiography tenderly of her involvement with Toys for Tots and called it one of her favourite charities.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on several subjects, but is now concerned with Silver Cross Rocking Horses. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at Rocking Horses for sale.

April 23, 2011

Charity Shops And Closet Clean Outs

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 5:10 am

One way of dividing up people that crosses the barriers of age, sex, religion and ethnicity is whether you are a hoarder or not. There are a great deal of hoarders, although some hoarders refer to themselves as collectors or only nostalgic.

That last sentence may be a bit unfair. Collecting can be explained away as a hobby and nostalgia can be considered a yearning for days when we were in better shape.

However, what it all comes down to for billions of households is the buildup of old junk and old clothing. My mother and her mother had decades of clothes that they were sure would come back into fashion one day.

They were probably right and it probably did, but they had to keep the stuff for twenty or thirty years and then teenagers were wearing it, not middle-aged mothers and grandmothers.

My point is that we should clear out our closets and wardrobes more frequently in order to create space and pass things on to people who can use them now rather than in twenty years time. I think that closets should be gone through once or twice a year.

Apart from seasonal stuff, if you have not worn something for months, there must be a good reason. Either you do not like it any more; you have gained weight or it does not suit you. So why not pass it on? Write it off and let someone else benefit from it before the moths do.

You could donate them to the Salvation Army, Shelter or any other charity shop or wait for your local church, school or scout brigade to hold a fund-raising bazaar or bring-and-buy sale.

This clears out room for you so that you can see the wood for the trees, permits a charity to profit from your surplus and allows someone more disadvantaged than you to wear good quality clothing at less than the retail cost.

If you have let spring cleaning drift a bit, not to worry. There are charity shops that have racks specializing in old-fashioned clothes. They call it retro and there are loads of people who enjoy wearing it.

There are also theatre and film companies scouring the secondhand clothes stores looking for period clothing. One of your old suits could be in the next Fifties remake!

However, passing your old, good quality clothing on to charity shops or specialist retro shops, whether you donate or sell them, is only one side of the coin. You can also buy from these stores.

If you have not been in a charity shop for years or think that you would not be seen dead in one, then you should go along and have a look. They are no longer the sad, amateurish places that they once were. They are run professionally and have a decent turnover of stock. They are a particularly decent source of warm winter clothing such as overcoats, so why not do everyone a favour and go and have a look sometime soon?

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on a variety of topics, but is now concerned with the jean jacket. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Mens Overcoats For Sale.

April 20, 2011

Some Of The Best Church Fund Raisers

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — Owen Jones @ 9:15 am

All buildings need maintenance and this includes churches. In the past, it was not so much of a difficulty as it is today, because the congregations were larger, so if everybody chipped in, the maintenance could be done.

These days, the congregations are smaller,so donations have to be higher. The price of maintenance has also gone up substantially. One of the main methods of topping up the maintenance fund is by fund raising, which involves holding fund-raising events.

It appears that every charitable organization is having the same problem, because in an average sized town, there are often a dozen fund-raising events every Saturday and Sunday. There are church fund-raisers, scout and youth club fund-raisers, school, YMCA and Women’s Institute fund raisers all battling to be the foremost event of the weekend.

This amount of competition makes it difficult to decide which sort of event to hold. In this article, we will take a look at some of the most popular kinds of fund-raising events – perhaps the kinds of events that will raise the most money for your charity’s building or your favourite good cause.

You could distribute catalogue order books. Some catalogue order books are non profit-making, which means that the catalogue company does not make a profit so that your church can. These catalogues are usually available only to churches, but some schools run them too. If you do not want to step on anybody’s toes, you could run your church’s catalogue only during the school’s summer holidays.

You could hold cookie dough sales. If every household in the congregation donated two pounds of cookie dough, the kids could go out and sell it on Saturday and Sunday mornings. This works well a few days before a big holiday like Thanksgiving or Independence Day. it also works quite well throughout the summer.

You could hold a dinner dance with guest speakers. The dinner could also have a theme – a different one (or none) each time, until you find the most popular: Barn Dance, Viennese, Cajun, Gypsy et cetera. The food would match the theme and so would the music. The speaker should not be the vicar or the charity’s president, but should be someone off the guest speaking circuit – someone who can bring the house down with humorous anecdotes and stories.

Do not make them cheap, aim to double your money and invite local business to purchase a table of six or eight for their star employees and customers. If you go down this path, you could also organize a boxing event with dinner jackets and a five course meal.

Rope in the local amateur boxing club to help set up a series of bouts with a neighbouring town and offer them 20% or whatever. They may do it free for the free publicity or they could hold the raffle (the prize could be the winner’s boxing gloves signed by all the boxers).

You could hold a day out with a difference. You could have a travelling fair erect its rides (but pay a rent for the privilege) and you could have stalls and small ‘cafes’. You could hire a bouncy house for kids to go moonwalking (and charge for it), but what would make it really different would be if the local amateur dramatic society put on a suitable play for you.

I do not know what you would call suitable: it could be a classic, a comedy or even a pantomime, but obviously you would have to give them time to learn their lines, so you would have to plan well in advance. They hold outdoor plays like this in rural Thailand and they are hugely popular for miles around.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a variety subjects, but is now concerned with the bouncy castles for sale. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Bouncy House Rentals

May 7, 2010

Donate A Car

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — Greg Black @ 6:15 am

There are a number of ways for a person to give charitable contributions to institutions. One of them is to donate a car to the institution that you want to support. This would mean that the car will play a major role in helping them. But you may want to do it the following things in order to make car donation a smooth process.

First, make sure to donate a car to the right charity group. They should be fitted to receive the vehicle that you want to donate. With this, you can use the internet to find the right charitable organizations where you donate a car and use it to support their charitable cause. Check on a number of organizations to find the best institution where you can give the vehicle.

Next step is about checking out the total amount you will give to charity. This is a good way for you to know where you can avail your tax deduction. There are some figures that will be considered as proper contributions for charity which could result to various tax benefits all throughout the entire year.

Third, it is very important for you not to get help from middlemen. These middlemen are the ones at intermediary institutions that get donations from people through media. This is because they will not usually give the appropriate value of the donation to charity since they would keep up to 90% of the money from themselves instead of giving it to the charitable institutions.

If you would really desire to achieve a tax deduction for your donate a car goal, then you must check out the current status of the organization. It should not be any regular institution for the one you will choose should be approved by the IRS for you to get the deduction.

There are some people who would like to save money. One of the ways to make it possible is through is to bring the car to the charitable institution on your own. This will not only save you money by renting a car delivery service but can also increase the value of their charity work by using a personal touch.

Finally, you have to make sure that you transfer the car with the utmost care. You may have to properly and formally transfer the title to the charity institution. Remember that the owner of the car label should not be left blank but it should bear the name of the charitable institution.

As you complete all these steps, you can easily donate a car without experiencing any hassles. With this, you can be able to do something for a good cause and give the proper value and amount of your car to charity without all the stress and financial troubles.

Why not donate a car to a charity organization rather than selling it for a couple hundred dollars? There are many car donation charity programs to choose from which offer a diversity of benefits to the organization as well as tax benefits for you.

February 11, 2010

Two Dogs Are Better Than One!

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — Connor Adair @ 10:49 am

I couldn’t believe it- I, the committed cat person, who had thought of every possible reason never to own a dog, who hated the smell and the jumping and the licking and the mucky mess of them- I was rescuing a dog. There I was, speeding along the highway, following my friend Jody who had *my* new dog on his scooter. I’d slept on it for two days and finally decided that I would take the little mutt in. I examined the specimen on Jody’s scooter. She was shivering, a fur covered bag of bones, her nose jutted into the wind and for some reason she was constantly licking the air. Lick Lick lick. With each flick of her little pink tongue I thought to myself, “What the heck am I doing?”

She had been abandoned outside a convenience store. I had passed her a million times since the first time I saw her, two weeks before. I’d taken her food and water, and finally decided that I just couldn’t let her die. But how would I do it? I hate responsibility and being tied down. I loved having a cat- all I had to do was put a bunch of food and water down for her, and a litter box, and she was good to go. What was I going to do with this dog?

Over the next several weeks, Dresden (my mutts named after a German city that’s been fire bombed) seemed to prove every fear that I had about adopting a dog. She peed on the floor. She chewed things up. She slept all day while I was gone, then when I got home exhausted, she had enough energy to power Manhattan. She kept me up all night whining and wanting to play. She cried terribly when I tried to leave, and would always try to bolt out the door when I left for work. I liked her, or at least I felt guilty for not liking her, which is almost like liking her, right?

Cut to two months later- I’m walking Dresden on the beach, and can’t let her off the leash because she’s in heat. What do I see ahead? ANOTHER DRESDEN! Except this Dresden is male.

Now let me tell you- my dog is weird looking. To see what must have been her twin is a strange coincidence, unless someone went up and down the coast abandoning puppies. Which is probably what happened. Let’s just say that male Dresden took a fancy to female Dresden, who was in heat and attracting every dog within a 30 mile radius. I ran home, and this little male dog, though limping and terribly skinny (more of a skeleton than a dog) followed us the whole way. I put Dresden inside, and took out a bowl of food for the male dog- a dog-lover trying to help a stray? No, my plan was to lure him back to the beach and while he was distracted by the food- RUN!

I did it. Three times. It didn’t work.

Finally it was time for me to go to work. Male Dresden was outside, howling at female Dresden, who was inside whining. I left. When I came home, male Dresden was inside the gate, laying on a makeshift bed, a bowl of food next to him. My landlord had taken him in thinking he was my dog! Aggggh! And fed him! Now he would never leave!

Every time I left the house, I had to fight off the amorous male Dresden who was trying to you know what the female Dresden (who is now happily spayed).

I took the little sucker in. Named him Romulus, after the mythical founder of Rome who was suckled by a wolf.

And a miracle happened. Shoes stopped being torn to shreds. When I arrived home, Dresden and Romulus greeted me with that special canine welcome frenzy, then they curled up together and.went to sleep. They had been playing all day. They had no need to keep me up all night. When I left for work, they both smiled wagging— oh good, finally she’s gone, let the games begin! When I took them to the beach, I didn’t have to throw sticks or run with them- they ran circles around each other, and were awfully cute doing it.

Two dogs are better than one! I’m a cat person. If you asked me if you should adopt a dog, I’d say no. But if you asked me if you should adopt two dogs, I’d say hell yes.

We are trying to help put dogs in need if you are interested in dog rescue adoption then be sure to check out the website to see how you can help. adoptable dogs all need good homes. You can get a unique content version of this article from the Uber Article Directory.

February 1, 2010

Should I Get A Cat Or A Dog?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , , , — Connor Adair @ 6:53 pm

Advice from a cat person who’s gone to the dogs

I was a committed cat person, but due to some interesting circumstances, I now have two dogs. I would never have considered getting a dog before for the following reasons: Dogs smell bad. Dogs have to be walked every day to do their business and exercise, which must be a pain in the butt. Dogs seem to get very depressed when their ‘person’ isn’t nearby. Dogs tear things up and destroy the house. I’ve found that though I was right about some of these things, I was wrong about others.

#1 Dogs smell bad. I hate to say it, but this is 100% true. Dogs use scent as a form of communication- for example, if doggy A went prowling around on the beach and found a dead fish, he would roll in it, paying special attention to the shoulder region, really grinding away at that dead fish so he could have the full benefit of it’s unique aroma. Then he would bring this lovely scent back to the pack (or in this case, back to the apartment) to brag to the others. My dogs seem very dejected when I wash their carefully chosen perfume off. My cat, on the other hand, wouldn’t be caught dead smelling like a dead fish.

#2 Dogs have to be walked everyday, to do their business and for exercise (TRUE) which is a pain in the butt (FALSE!). I used to watch my dog-having friends with pity. We’d be at a pub or hanging out at someone’s house when they’d sigh, get up, and say ‘well, I’ve got to go let my dog out or he’ll pee on the floor’ and off they’d go, leaving a fun night behind them. What I didn’t understand was that they wanted to get home to their dog. I’ve only had my dogs for 5 months and I’ll tell you right now- after 8 hours away, I miss those mangy little mutts. Also, sometimes it’s downright handy to have an excuse to get out of a boring social situation.

I thought I would hate having to walk my dog all the time- but I love it! I actually know my neighbors and it gives me more exercise and time outside. Before I had my dogs, I never went for walks. Now I do at least twice a day, and it’s one of the healthiest, most relaxing habits that I have. Sometimes we need a reason to do what’s good for us. I’m glad I have two. My cat, however, never gets me out of the house. In fact, she seems to send me subliminal messages convincing me to stay in.

#3 Dogs seem to be very depressed when their ‘person’ isn’t nearby. True. This was probably my biggest reason for not wanting a dog. Most people love the warm welcome they get from their dog after they’ve been gone all day, but I found it depressing. If the dog was so happy to see them come home, weren’t they depressed all day while the person was gone? This troubled me for the first month that I had a dog. I would be out all day, busy, while she was home all day, sleeping. Then when I came home, she wanted to play. I’ve found the perfect solution, which is…drum roll please.TWO DOGS! Ever since I got my second dog, we all seem to be on the same wave-length when it comes to activity level. For more information on how two dogs are better than one, please click here.

#4 Dogs tear things up and destroy the house. This one seems to be true for the first month. I’ve come home to my fair share of destroyed slippers. A good number of my personal items bare canine teeth marks. But I found that after the first month, we reached a compromise- my dog had a better sense of what I didn’t want her to chew on, and I have a better sense of what not to leave within her reach. I say a month because that’s how long I think it takes for a new pet and pet owner to reach some sort of understanding. But it’s probably not a coincidence that my stuff stopped getting chewed up right around the time that I got my second dog. Once again, two dogs seem to be better than one. I’m pretty sure that my two dogs play and chew on each other all day while I’m gone.

So there you have it- some of the common misconceptions that cat people have about dogs, and whether or not they’re true.

Were trying to help put dogs in need if you are interested in dog rescue adoption then be sure to check out the web site to see how you can help. adoptable dogs all need good homes. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

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