8 Things You Can Do To Help Humanity Today
I’m exhausted! Aren’t you? I mean really, it’s been a rough few months for well… humanity, and the events going on are affecting students here at Syracuse, their family and their friends. Like you, I can’t comprehend what is going on but what can be done is something, and even just one something can make a huge difference. Here are some ideas to help:
- Adopt a Pet
After Hurricane Harvey in Texas, many pets became homeless and airlifted to other states including New York. If you’re able to adopt a pet, here are some local resources to put you in touch with the right people. Many Newhouse students go down to NYC where Muddy Paws Rescue joined with Camp Canine on the Upper West Side to give those pets temporary shelter until they find new homes, which may be yours.
- Donate Funds for Food
Shortly thereafter Hurricane Irma hit Florida and the Caribbean Islands and as of Sunday, October 14th 50,000 people, a size of a city itself, lined up for food stamps in Miami according to the Palm Beach Post.com. The outlying islands, however, need to get resources down to them, which is more difficult. Food for the Poor out of Coconut Creek, Florida is taking monetary donations to ship food to those islands.
- Help with Health and Home
Montana’s fires got overlooked amongst the rain, but they are still in need of assistance with things such as air purification services and help with property damage.
406 Family Aid helps outside of natural disasters too with family’s health care costs.
- Help Children
Not to take away from hundreds of lives hurt and lost in Mexico, but 90% of your donation will go directly to helping children in need through Unicef USA. Our students come from the world over and must not be forgotten. Your donation will combine to help nearly 5 million children affected by the quake according to the Unicef site.
- Look to Private Citizens
Last Friday was a yoga fundraiser at SU for Puerto Rico, where many students come from. If you happened to miss the class, I’ve noticed there are many private citizens stepping up including the B Strong Imitative, who, by using donations and their privilege of wealth and public eye is going down on their own to help wherever possible. I knew Bethany Frankel as a reality TV show star, but this is a new color for her public persona. Water, canned goods, pet supplies et al are being delivered and you can help too.
- Keep Informed
The Violence Policy Center is a non-profit that started in 1988 that focuses on gun violence in America including mass shootings with the goal to ease the violence that we see. You can utilize their website to keep informed on current laws and to see what you feel comfortable in doing to help. Though gun violence is a much bigger issue than the gun itself anything that moves the process forward to prevent further attacks such as that in Las Vegas is a good move, but I’m biased as I’m from Colorado where two major mass shootings happened.
On top of being educated, to do something directly with the Las Vegas victims, there are still blood donations needed. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal they haven’t seen this amount of donations since 9/11. However, many victims were not from Las Vegas and are healing all over the country. The article linked above will direct you to those that need financial or other assistance that is part of the long process of physical and mental healing and what you can do to help.
- Helping Those Who Help
California seems to have a season of fires and this year is horrible. Many people lost their lives and homes including firefighters themselves. A link to donate is here. Other donation options for wine country are located on that site as well.
- The Power of You
Maybe you have your own idea of how you can help. You know your strengths best and if being a college student doesn’t offer up a huge amount of finances, see where you can use your strengths to assist. For ideas, in the past, I’ve given free yoga classes to recovery workers after a long day of flood re-building, organized a fashion show where the proceeds went to the United Way or created art kits for the children’s hospital. Maybe it’s writing or using a camera to highlight stories of those lost or who are going through a recovery stage so once the news cycle passes them over, they are not forgotten.
Yes, it’s not food or water but hopefully, will help in some fashion. And if all else, listening and being a friend to students here is an amazing way to help in and of itself. Perhaps one of these inspired you or gave you an idea. Maybe you can only handle one, but it’s one more thing that will help one being and that is pretty amazing.
