Victims need more than prayers.


I see these well meaning images all the time after horrible things happen. Everyone shares them, ribbons, candles, pictures of children, and hugging, and all sorts of thing. What I don't see are people sharing information for the Red Cross, who collects the blood the injured people need. Or information for the Salvation Army, who provide disaster support to the first responders in the form of small on site kitchens.

These images let people feel like they did something. They felt for the hurt and empathized for those who lost people or had families hurt. Well, that's nice, but you can really help them instead!

Instead of lighting a candle or praying (ok, you can do those to) donate $10 to the Red Cross Disaster relief, or even just $5 to the Salvation Army. Go donate blood at your local Red Cross. Yea, there may not be a disaster near you right now, but lots of people need that blood. If there were a disaster near you would you feel better knowing that your Red Cross was stocked with blood and volunteers or that somewhere, a 10,000 people spent 5 seconds to click "like" or "share" on a bunch of pixels of a prayer? 

Be the change you want to see in the world. It's really really not the thought that counts, but your actions.

Red Cross http://www.redcross.org/charitable-donations

Salvation Army http://blog.salvationarmyusa.org/2013/04/15/salvation-army-providing-support-in-boston-ma/

There are a bunch of websites listing how you can help. Choose your favorite and do so. Your prayers and thoughts are a nice gesture but make a real difference.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/help-boston-marathon-victims_n_3087183.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

School, Geekery, and Science!

Image
Woops! I did not notice that my posts were getting stuck in "draft"! Here's what been published late: 20120805-11 Curiosity and News . News: KY Evolution, Medieval Germanic War . In Life: Img Src School has started again and I've got four classes, Organic Chemistry I, Genetics, Introduction for Teaching, and Introduction to Technology for Educators. For those of you of my generation let me emphasize that the latter is "intro to, technology for educators" and not "intro to technology, for educators". If you don't know the difference: instead of teaching me "Intro to Tech" (typing, how to use word, excel, etc, all that jazz) I'll be learning the programs that educators tend to use nowadays to organize students' grades, build digital classrooms, work through how the law pertaining to teaching interacts with the law pertaining to technology, etc. I'll be keeping two blogs for the class and uploading my final projec...
Read more

Star Trek Diplomas: All of them. I think.

Image
So... StarTrek.Com has released a Starfleet Academy Diploma.  I wanted to see if the design was supported by canon (because I'm a huge fact-check nerd) and in my quest collected what I think to be all the diploma designs officially used on the show. I'm still looking though, so if you find one I don't have here, please leave a comment! Confirmed authentic : Voyager epi "Non Sequitur". It appears to be the first time a diploma had been shown, if rabid Trekkers diligently duplicating it is any indication. If you register at the LCARSc site, you can download a free template to make your own! (ref: http://www.lcarsc.com/entry.php/34-Freebie-Friday-Starfleet-Diploma ) Confirmed authentic:  Enterprise : "Storm Front, Part II" Earlier in storyline, later in established canon. Found via http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Starfleet_Academy_majors Official StarTrek.Com diploma (Released 2012):  I can't find any epi screenshot t...
Read more

Classroom Architect

Image
One of my assignments for Intro to Tech for Educators was to design a classroom (to certain specifications). I'm posting it here A: Because it's neat.  B: In case the file upload goes wrong.  C: Look! I made it a science classroom! Look's like the one I had when I was in 7th grade science! Bangarang!
Read more