GIFTS

Stuff vs Experience

What do the people in your life truly need? Is more stuff really the answer? This holiday season, consider giving experiences as gifts. This is no small request, as I think you’ll find. People are accustomed to giving and receiving STUFF, tangible, material, stuff. But most of us have more stuff than we know what to do with, and science and religion both tell us that what we really treasure, what truly brings us joy is experience.

Have you ever watched The Story of Stuff? It is an extraordinarily eye opening little video, and at only around 20 minutes it is very well worth the watch. And it may just change your thoughts on giving stuff this year.

Consider all the ways you can give experiences this year – and I’m not talking about giving gift cards!  Host a cooking party or wine tasting party for your friends.  Take your significant other to see their favorite sports team or to a concert.  Play golf with your brother (Heaven knows I wish I could).  Babysit for your friends so they can have a date, a spa day, a nap!

What is your favorite holiday memory?  Is it getting that bike you wanted, or is it learning to ride that bike and going on rides with your family?  Is it buying ornaments or is it decorating the tree with your loved ones?

Give coupons for you time.  Host.  Visit.  Help.  Even loved ones far away can receive gifts of experience.  Buy you health minded buddy some yoga sessions or send her to a cooking class.

Gifts of experience are the way to go, this holiday season and into the future (trust me, I know these things).  And as an added bonus, there is no waste left, only wonderful memories and maybe some pictures.  There’s no clutter, just love.

But sometimes a material gift is in order.  And for those times, use these tips to make the most out of you holiday giving.

Ordering Online
There are the obvious considerations when it comes to ordering gifts online: the environmental cost of shipping, packaging materials, and the source of the goods. These are pretty easy to grapple with.

Buy local as opposed to buying online if possible to avoid the shipping and packaging issues (as well as costs). Of course, sometimes online shopping offers the better option (especially if you’re going to have to ship the gift anyway).  If you are buying online, try to consolidate your online purchases into a single shipment. Shop small businesses online when possible. And keep in mind that you can “shop local” from afar by ordering gifts online from small businesses located near your recipient. For instance, last year I ordered a plant for my mom from local shop just down the street from her job.

It is so easy to do a little extra good with your online purchases; there’s no reason NOT to.  All you have to do is purchase your online gifts from a site that gives back.  Whether that means buying gifts from the store of a charity you support.

Then there are sites where you can shop a large selection of goods from various places with a portion of proceeds going to charity.  I wrote more about this in Don’t Send Flowers.  I recommend shopping The Animal Rescue Site, The Hunger Site, or The Rainforest Site stores – all part of the Greater Good Network.  Click these sites every day to send advertiser proceeds to charity (it takes less than 3 minutes).

There is also GoodShop, where part of your purchase proceeds go to charity and GoodDining where your dinner gift certificates can earn charitable donations.

Really, there is just no reason not to.

Buying In Person

Shop local – and I don’t mean your local Wal-Mart (or even Target).  The goods to be found at smaller local shops are of such better quality and are so much more unique than the mass produced garbage at the big chain stores, plus the shopping experience is so much more enjoyable, and your shopping dollars do so much more for your local community.  Plus, if you’re able to talk to the owner of a given shop, oftentimes you can get special deals, make specific requests, or find out about treasures that might be perfect that you otherwise would never have known about.

Hand-Made Gifts

The obvious benefit of hand-made gifts is the frugality and personal touch, but consider also the green potential.  Recycling, Reusing, Repurposing.  Those glass sauce jars you (er, we) have sitting around?  Give healthy read made soup mixes or mini terrariums.  There are literally hundreds of ideas out there for these projects, and as a bonus making them can be a great activity with your kids, spouse, or friends.  Holiday gift making party, anyone?  Check out this list of 101 Green Handmade Gifts or the source of all ideas, Pinterest.

CHARITABLE GIVING

It is a sad fact that charitable giving is expected to continue to decline this year.  The economy is still recovering from the recession, and many people are struggling.  This is more reason to give!  If you can’t afford to give money, consider donating your time or unused possessions.  Have you ever seen someone overjoyed to receive a shower curtain and rod from a local charity?  I’m certain that most of us can find something we can spare.  Growing up, we really didn’t have much, but we could usually find something to share.

I heard a story on NPR this morning that stated that the average age of a donor to charity this year is 65 years old.  My aim is to change that.

Tinkling Bells, Santa Hats, and Bigotry

Now, when I talk about charitable giving, I am NOT talking about dumping change in the Salvation Army bell ringer’s red tin.  The Salvation Army has refused assistance to gay couples unless they break up and go straight, Muslim families who refuse to attend “Christian Bible classes,”  kids who can’t prove their immigration status, and more.  The meaning of charity is truly lost on this bigoted, hate-filled organization, and I will not allow a cent of my money to fund hate this holiday season or ever.  Read more about the Salvation Army’s “mission” here.

Choosing a Charity

The Salvation Army issue should be your first hint that you should look into your charities a little before making your donation. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of charities for every cause you can think of, and some are better than others. The main things you want to look for are the transparency of the operation, the percentage of the funding that goes to overhead, and the good that is actually done by the charity – as well as being on the lookout for any hidden agendas like with the bell-ringers.

There are a number of non-profit organizations that compile all this data and rate charities for you, making the research step a whole lot easier. I also love visiting the sites because you can find out about new charities you may not have known about. Probably the largest is CharityNavigator.org, which considers all the above listed factors without overly penalizing companies who invest in significant programs (thereby putting more money toward overhead). In addition to Charity Navigator, you can research charities at the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance (give.org), the American Institute of Philanthropy (charitywatch.org) and GiveWell (givewell.org). You can also find information on the charity’s website.

Maximize Your Gift

When it comes to charities, I can be a very indecisive and eclectic person.  There are so many wonderful charities and important causes.  I want to give to them all!  Heck, that’s why I practice Ethical Eating rather than just being vegan or something – I want to do the most good I can.

Giving a little to a lot of charities, however, may not be the best way to give.  While it may be true that “every little bit helps,” a lot still helps more.  Choosing one or two causes – and one or two charities – that you are particularly passionate about and giving larger gifts to those charities has the potential to do much more than could be done with many very small gifts to many charities.

While it may be hard (it certainly is for me), choosing just a couple charities to be an avid supporter of does much more good for those charities than simply being a vague supporter of many.

You might also consider making a repeating gift.  Instead of just giving one lump sum during the Holidays, consider making monthly donations.  Overall, you’ll probably be able to give more, and many charities really depend on repeating donations to know what sort of budget they have to work with and to get them through times of year when giving is less “popular.”

Some of my charitable donations are taken right out of my paycheck every month before I even see it – something I love, and money I don’t even miss (whereas I might be more aware that it was gone if I were writing a check).

Giving of Yourself

Not everyone has money to spare, or maybe you feel the money you have to spare isn’t as much as you have to give.  Maybe you want to experience a more personal connection to your giving.  I don’t know of a single charity that would turn away willing and enthusiastic volunteers.  Giving of your time can be more valuable and more fulfilling than giving money alone.  And if you’re like me, it can be a way to give to more charities without shrinking your financial donations.

We routinely volunteer with Family Promise, a charity that helps families who have lost their homes, while my financial donations go to animal welfare charities.

Do you have a special skill that you could donate?  A carpenter would obviously be an ideal volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, but those skills could be used at any number of charities – repairing animal kennels, fixing things in women’s shelters, etc.  If you have a talent for crafting, there are innumerable kids charities or homes for the elderly that would be happy to have you.  If you’re sociable, perhaps visiting hospitals or nursing homes.

Any skill can be donated, you may just have to get a little creative with it.  But there are few things more fulfilling than giving of your time.  And volunteering is a perfect way to develop:

SPIRIT OF GIVING FROM AN EARLY AGE

 I want giving and volunteering to be a way of life for my kids, not just during the holidays, but year round.  Including kids in volunteering and charity can be easy and fun.  My kids had a blast when we took out kayaks to clean litter out of the river.  They also enjoy playing with the other kids when we do Family Promise.

This year, the Religious Education (think Sunday School) class at our church is putting together boxes for operation Christmas Child, which is another fun opportunity for kids to really get involved in giving to others and to learn more about the different circumstances in which some people live.

No matter how or where you choose to give this year, have a wonderful and fulfilling season.  And please keep in mind those who have less and ways to give more.

The post On Giving and Caring: Conscious Consumerism appeared first on Urban Earthworm.

As a devoted chocolate lover, I was horrified to discover that many of my favorite seasonal treats – treats that bring so much joy to children here in the US – are produced using cruel, abusive child labor.  The bigger the brand, the more likely it is to contain chocolate harvested with the sweat and tears of child slaves / child slavery.

Boycott Hershey’s, Mars, Reese’s, and (in the US) Cadbury this year, and instead choose from one of the many brands devoted to ending this horrifying practice (see the list at the end of this post).

I was disgusted to discover that  according to an investigative report by the BBC, hundreds of thousands of children are being purchased from their parents, or outright stolen, and then shipped to Ivory Coast, where they are enslaved on cocoa farms.  Destitute parents in these poverty-stricken lands sell their children to traffickers believing that they will find honest work once they arrive in Ivory Coast and then send some of their earnings home. But that’s not the reality. The terrible reality is that these children, 11-to-16-years-old but sometimes younger, are forced to do hard manual labor 80 to 100 hours a week. They are paid nothing, receive no education, are barely fed, are beaten regularly, and are often viciously beaten if they try to escape. Most will never see their families again.

Over a decade ago, two Congressmen, U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, D-New York, and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, attempted to remedy this issue.  They introduced legislation mandating a labeling system for chocolate. After the deep pockets of the chocolate corporations protested, a compromise was reached that required chocolate companies to voluntarily certify they had stopped the practice of child labor. The certification process would not involve labeling products “child-labor-free,” as initially proposed.  In my opinion, the movement lost its teeth at that point.

Instead of the “Child Labor Free” label, it called for public reporting by African governments, establishment of an audit system and poverty remediation by 2005. The deadline had to be extended to 2008 (read Fortune Magazine’s report on the state of the protocol in 2008) and again to 2010. Today, many aid groups say some of the provisions have still not been met, and it is the biggest corporations who refuse to comply.

Why should they?  Child slavery allows them to sell cheap chocolate to a clueless US American public.  Heaven knows I was a sucker for Reece’s Pumpkins and Easter Eggs before I found out about this epidemic of slavery – not to mention a cookies and cream bar once in a while (this was also before I quit dairy).  The CEOs of these corporations make millions upon millions of dollars off of children suffering and dying.  And so many people are completely unaware the problem even exists.

So the next time you reach for a candy bar, when you go to buy candy to hand out to trick or treaters or to stock your holiday candy dishes or include in your cookies, consider the price thousands of children are paying to bring you that chocolate.

Am I telling you to swear off chocolate?  Absolutely NOT!  Thank heavens!  All you have to do is be aware that your dollars have a voice, and your support of various brands sends a message.  Make that message a positive one, and buy chocolate from an ethical source.  There is a whole list of chocolate companies who use ethically sourced chocolate below, or you can simply look for Fair Trade or Equal Exchange on the label.

Not a fan of chocolate slavery, child slavery, corporate douche-baggery, and what-have-you?  Here’s what you can do (some of these are excerpted from Is There Child Slavery in Your Chocolate?):

* Purchase chocolate products from companies who only use cocoa that has definitively not been produced with slave labor. These companies include:

Clif Bar
Cloud Nine
Chocolove Dark Chocolate bar
Chocolove Cherries and Almonds Dark Chocolate Bar
Chocolove Crystallized Ginger Dark Chocolate Bar
Chocolove Orange Peel Dark Chocolate Bar
Chocolove Raspberry Dark Chocolate bar
Dagoba Organic Chocolate
Denman Island Chocolate
Divine Chocolate
Equal Exchange
Gardners Candies
Green and Black’s
John & Kira’s
Kailua Candy Company
Koppers Chocolate
L.A. Burdick Chocolates
Montezuma’s Chocolates
NewLeaf Chocolates
Newman’s Own Organics
Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company
Rapunzel Pure Organics
Shaman Chocolates
Sweet Earth Chocolates
Taza Chocolate
The Endangered Species Chocolate Company
Theo Chocolate.

Sure, some of these brands can be a little more expensive than chocolate provided by slaves (not exactly a shocker there), but the extra few cents is worth it every single time.  If I can’t find ethical chocolate, I will just not have chocolate.  It’s not worth the price otherwise.  And if you order in bulk, you can save a lot.  We recently ordered a TON of Equal Exchange chocolate miniatures for Halloween that even come with little cards about the benefits of ethical chocolate, and we’re encouraging everyone we know to hand out cruelty free candy this year.

A few weeks ago when MacGyver gave a lecture about Ethical Eating, during which I also spoke, one of the topics he covered was the chocolate slave trade.  A week later a friend of ours who had been at the lecture walked up to me and said, “I hate you.  I was going to grab a chocolate bar in the checkout line this week, and I remembered those poor kids and I just couldn’t do it.”  I think I’m totally ok with her hating me for that!

* In addition or alternative to ethical chocolate, consider purchasing something from this cruelty free candy list:

Airheads taffy
Brach’s Cinnamon Hard Candy
Brach’s Hi-C Fruit Slices
Brach’s Hi-C Orange Slices
Brach’s Root Beer Barrels
Brach’s Star Brites
Chick-o-Sticks
Cry Babies
Dots
Dum-Dums
Fireballs
Hubba Bubba bubblegum
Jolly Ranchers (lollipops and hard candy)
Jujubees
Jujyfruits
Laffy Taffy (some varieties)
Lemonheads
Mambas
Mary Janes (regular and peanut butter kisses)
Mike and Ike
Panda Licorice
Runts
Smarties (U.S. Brand)
Sour Patch Kids
Super Bubble
Swedish Fish
Sweet Tarts
Twizzlers
Zotz

* Hershey has asked the public to give feedback on their corporate responsibility via an online survey. Let them know what you think. They’re asking for it. Urge them to work toward Fair Trade certification of their chocolate products. Tell them there’s nothing sweet about manufacturing 80 million Hershey Kisses a day, using cocoa is often produced using abusive child labor.

* Get a free DVD copy of the film The Dark Side of Chocolate, along with information about Fair Trade, from the dedicated people at Green America. Watch it, show it to your friends, and spread the word.

* Tweet about this article, pin it, and post it to your facebook page. Tell your friends to read this article and take the Hershey online survey. The more people who do, the greater the chance Hershey will realize that the time has arrived for it to take responsibility for its actions.

* EDUCATE YOURSELF AND OTHERS.  Here are some excellent resources to read and share on the topic of chocolate and child slavery:

Is There Child Slavery in Your Chocolate?
The Bitter Truth About Chocolate
The Human Cost of Chocolate
Equal Exchange Farmers – the way it should be done
Tulane University Assessment of Child Labour in the Cocoa Supply Chain
The Dark Side of Chocolate – Spread the Word, Host a Screening with this Free DVD and Kit!

The post Chocolate and Child Slavery – Say NO This Holiday Season appeared first on Urban Earthworm.