5 Favorites: Charities

For today's 5 Favorites, I'm going to do my favorite charities. Perfect for the 'almsgiving' part of Lent, right? Feel free to donate to them!!

1.

Habitat For Humanity

I actually worked for a Habitat for Humanity affiliate when I was in AmeriCorps (like the PeaceCorps, but in the U.S.). What a lot of people think is that Habitat gives away houses. But those people would be wrong. Habitat partner families actually buy their house with a no-interest mortgage. They also must put in 300 hours of sweat equity helping build the houses. No-interest loans are completely biblical, and Habitat supplements all their costs of building and overhead by donations. Working for Habitat for Humanity was fun, challenging, and heartwarming, as we tried to provide decent, safe, affordable houses to those in need.

2.

Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society

I also worked volunteered for this organization. The mission of NMCRS is to provide financial assistance and education to members of the United States Navy and Marine Corps, their eligible family members, widows, and survivors. (Um, I just typed that out from memory, and I haven't set foot in the door in over a year.) The main goal is to help each person who comes in to get support for their immediate needs, but the long-term mission is to help Sailors and Marines become financially self-sufficient. They are another no-interest loan provider, and they really do help people get their finances in order when they come in for assistance.

I did admin work there and taught a Budget for Baby class (in reality, it was a basic budgeting class that should be taught in every high school, but with a baby-on-the-way-twist). It is almost 90% volunteer-run, so they treated us great, paid for our mileage and even paid for childcare so I could keep doing it after I had Cora. I loved this organization and wish I still lived in a military town so I could continue volunteering. If you're looking for a military organization to donate to, I can't recommend this one enough! This is also the oldest charity on my list, at 110 years old!!

3.

Heifer International

This one has definitely taken the "teach a man to fish" concept and ran with it. When you donate to Heifer, you help buy livestock for third-world families, which can help them in so many ways. Their mission is to work with communities to end world hunger and poverty and to care for the Earth. Plus, it's totally fun to say you bought a cow for someone, right?

4.

charity: water

"charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing countries. We use 100% of public donations to directly fund sustainable water solutions in areas of greatest need."

100%, y'all. That's pretty dang impressive. I also really liked the video on their website that explains how clean water can open up educational opportunities to many children.

5.
Catholic Relief Services

"Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. The agency alleviates suffering and provides assistance to people in need in 91 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality."

You may know them for their yearly Rice Bowl campaign?? I found they have a Rice Bowl app, too, which is pretty cool!

For more favorites, check out Moxie Wife.