Christmas cards…or……
Christmas cards? New Year cards?
Just how much DO we actually spend telling people we already know that we are thinking of them as they already well know?
1 x Euro on a card and 60 Centimes on a stamp? Times how many friends? 50? Conservatively?
50 x 1.60 = 80 Euros. Perhaps 80% of this goes straight into the pocket of the state or the card retailer and a little on paper, packgaing and envelopes.
But what if we were to change the dynamic here?
What if we were to say:
‘OK, I’ll send my friends ‘cards’ by email, but with the money saved I’ll send a cow to Africa which will become a family’s revenue for a year or I’ll sponsor a child’s education or a community’s water supply???’
Wouldn’t that be more vital, more worthwhile, more valuable?
Our family sponsors two children via Action Aid (A British charity: one in the vast, lost hinterland of China; the other in South America).
It costs us just 15 Euros per child per month: the price of a plat du jour or a couple of pints of beer in a nightclub. We recieve regular updates from the Action Aid Project Team working in that region, usually accompanied by drawings or simple messages from the child concerned. ‘Our children’ are pictured having running water in their school for the very first time and schooling (often denied to girls particularly). The money makes precious little difference to us, but at the other end of the proverbial telescope, enormous difference to them.
If you think that this sort of drop in the ocean is for you, then I’ll try to list here the organisations of which I have some knowledge:
Action Aid (To whom you can make a once and for all donation or a sponsorship commitment).
Send-a-Cow (One of the organisations that Tony supported at his last UK university, where one of his colleagues was a farmer deeply involved in this, and other such projects)
Sending a cow costs £160 (€175). That’s two or three peoples’ cards inc postage….