Hey 19

The weekend is over and I'm plumb tuckered out. I spent most of Saturday with my girlfriend Mary first volunteering in the food tent at the 10 Ugly Men festival to raise money for local charities and later hanging in the VIP tent at a Steely Dan concert.

At 10 Ugly Men, we encountered the Pizza Nazi: a woman who, I'm guessing, was the volunteer coordinator and barked at everyone from volunteers to paying customers. Screaming at people who were cutting the line, "You may think you're cute but I'm not serving you without a plate." Really? Do you have to be that nasty?

We had a line a mile long for people waiting for food. We also had a line of volunteers at the end waiting to serve. The bottleneck was the center where the mac and potato salads were being doled out. Those of us at the end, in an attempt to alleviate the wait, were taking orders from people earlier in the line. "You cannot serve people meat this early. They have to pass the salads." Stoopid.

One woman said to us in a feigned whimper, "If she yells at me one more time, I'm leaving. I've been here since 7:30 this morning and I'm a volunteer for chrissake."

Another volunteer taught me how to make sure the condiments and napkin holders were always full as if it were the most challenging and critical job on the planet. Oh, the pressure . . .

So we moved from flipping burgers on a sunny day with temps over 100 degrees to sipping wine and eating prime rib on a very comfortable night under the stars. My favorite part of hobnobbing with the local elite was discovering how everyone shakes hands while reading your name tag. Hello! My eyes are up here! (I'm guessing, since I was a guest of a VIP, they were trying to figure out if I was somebody noteworthy. Nope.)

Steely Dan? Never a big fan and last night was no exception. They were lifeless much akin to the giant mechanical rat that plays on the stage at Chuck E. Cheese. Before the show, Mary warned me, "I'm only staying for four songs." Okay by me. The first song was so boring, I said to no one in particular, "Oh this is my favorite" to which the dude next to me started laughing.

At the end of the fourth song, I texted Mary in the seat next to me just to give myself something to do. "Let me know when you want to leave." She responded, "Now!" so we bolted. We felt like ingrates but we did have fun before the band started. Does that count?

Friendship: Having heaps o' fun with someone regardless of one's circumstances. Sweating to death, yet laughing, while serving drunken masses? Check. Dancing in our seats while listening to crappy jazzy jazz hits? Check.

Make tonight a wonderful thing.

Random Soapbox

I donated a few months ago to World Vision for disaster relief in Japan. Since then, I have received countless direct mail pieces, thick envelopes chock full of letters and inserts, asking for more money. I feel like a) too soon and b) that can't be cheap. So I sent them a quick email the other day asking, "Is it possible to get on your 'do not contact' list? When I donated recently, it wasn't to fund weekly direct mail pieces to myself soliciting incremental funds."

To their credit, they responded quickly; however, it will take another eight weeks of junk mail headed directly to the recycling bin to do so.

According to Charity Navigator, World Vision scores four stars. In addition, it only spends seven cents on every dollar in fundraising (i.e. over 88% of its budget goes directly to programs and services). That is unbelievably efficient. How is that possible given the number of direct mail pieces that I am receiving? Oh, right. Because they raise over $1.2B (!) in revenue each year. This translates to over $90M in fundraising. That's a lot of fundraising, no?!

In short, I feel significantly less inclined to continue contributing to them now even though I still believe they're a worthy cause. While their efficiency rating is high, I have a lack of trust that my monies are being used wisely.

I wish there was an easy way to set your preferences once, across all organizations, to avoid waste. Just because an organization "owns" my name, doesn't mean I want to hear from them ad nauseam.

Okay. I'm done.

Jerry's Kids

I've been wondering for a couple of weeks how the MDA got so many blinkin' people to take part in their "MDA Lock Up" campaign. Each person who agrees to take part has a contribution goal and hits up his/her contacts up to donate money. On the day of the campaign, the person must go to jail (which, in this case, is a local bar -- is that the hook?) and cannot be released until the agreed-upon funds are raised. So, s/he spends the afternoon dialing for dollars and purportedly "networking" with other people who are also donating their time/money to help the MDA.

There are so many organizations that need funds right now: what makes the MDA campaign so compelling? Is it the fun nature of being "jailed" for the day? Does it make it easier for people to give because the event itself has a whimsical storyline?

I have nothing against the MDA but here's what struck me when I clicked on the link and asked myself: what can my hard-earned money provide to the MDA?

$87 will fund one minute of research

One minute. Are you kidding me? I could sponsor a third-world child for three months for roughly the same amount of money. Or I could help to change the world one smile at a time.

Not one to let this drop, I went on Charity Navigator where I noticed that the MDA was given only two stars (out of four). I wonder how many of my friends and acquaintances who were jailed last week know where their money is going. I'm sure it's a worthy cause -- I would just rather put my dollars elsewhere.

Benefit Concerts

While watching Son #2's Little League game yesterday, Son #1 said to me, "One of the three bands I'm going to be in when I'm older is going to make it big. I want to be so famous that we can put on benefit concerts for the poor. And teach people who don't know English how to read and write. I'm also going to take a lot of the money that I make when I'm rich and build houses for the homeless."

I told him that he had complete support for that venture.

Later, we went to see daddy play a benefit concert for a local lumberjack celebrity, Dave Jewett, who is trying to raise funds for his recent kidney transplant and the long-term costs associated with a lifetime of cost-prohibitive medication.

When we didn't win anything in the raffle and some lucky man outbid me in the final throes of the silent auction for the villa in Cabo, Son #1 was dismayed. Then the hubby informed him that the money went to a good cause and he relaxed. I then wondered if he knew about today's benefit concert when he made the comment in the morning . . .

Regardless, I hope that as a family, we can become more altruistic. We have a lot to be thankful for.