Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

In 2013 for the first post of the new year, I made a list. Not of resolutions, but of actions, actions you could take to “change the world.” They were personal things like opening a savings account with Able Banking , because they give $25 to charity when you do as well as a percentage of the interest you earn. It’s something like what I post on the main page of my website in the Today’s Ways to Help section and my list of Cost-Free Ways to Help Others . For 2014, I want to continue the tradition, but with a twist. I’m still going to list things you can do to help charities, but this time I want to focus on ways to raise larger amounts of money. People have asked me for ideas on how to do this and I want to give you some tips for 2014. These ideas aren’t as easy as opening a savings account, but they are more rewarding. For these ideas, you need the help of others. As someone who has led a team of people devoted to a cause, I must say it is an amazing feeling when it all comes...

A dime a day. Does it sound like too much or too little? It adds up to about three dollars a month, less than the cost of a Starbucks espresso or a Burger King Whopper. It is the coin of compassion that Help Every Day deducts from your credit card monthly to support its projects. If you’re not sure how to go about helping other people and you don’t have much money to do so, then Help Every Day is a great option. They’ve done projects around the world: improving water collection in Tanzania, developing literacy and vocational skills among poor adolescent girls in India, providing bikes for new health care professionals in Tanzania, financing difficult deliveries of babies in Sierra Leone, caring for orphaned Kenyan babies, providing training for older orphans in Kenya. Their current project is helping the indigenous Quechua communities in Peru. By financing a project over a six month period, Help Every Day will assist these threatened communities with economic developmen...

Do you have 67 minutes?   It’s just a bit over an hour but it represents so much more.   Sixty seven years is how long Nelson Mandela gave to fighting for the rights of humanity.   Next Wednesday, July 18 th is Mandela’s birthday which is becoming known as Mandela Day, a day to devote yourself for 67 minutes to making the world a better place. I have been around for the destruction of the Berlin Wall, for the ending of the Cold War, but for some reason, the election of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa in 1994 just seems to me to surpass all of these other events. Thirty six of the 67 years were spent in prison by Mandela and I have a hard time relating to that.   How could someone keep the faith while in prison for almost as long as I have been alive?   He must have had more conviction than I could ever muster. Of course the greater oppression against you, the greater you must be to overcome it. But not only did he overcome it, he create...