UNICEF for Halloween!

Sorry about the delay in posting...busy weekend! But it's not for lack of inspiration. My daughter already has her little UNICEF collection box for trick or treating! So this week, in a show of solidarity, I'm featuring UNICEF on here, too.

For those who might not remember collecting for UNICEF as a kid, this is the United Nations Chidren's Fund, which helps underprivileged children around the world. These are kids who are suffering from hunger, disease, war, you name it. Sort of makes the Wall Street meltdown seem tame by comparison, doesn't it?

So refresh your memory and check out UNICEF U.S.A.'s Web site, and then click here to put your five bucks down! And hey...if you're taking your kids around on Friday, it's a great way to help educate them about helping others.

The Nature Conservancy: Plant 5 trees for $5!

I've been meaning for a while now to feature one of the great evironmental charities out there, the Nature Conservancy. But with hurricanes in the Atlantica and, well, hurricanes on Wall Street...I'm just getting around to it. Forgive me, Mother Nature!

In any event, the Nature Conservancy has a great program out there right now called Plant a Billion Trees. This fund drive hopes to reforest Brazil's Atlantic Forest. No, this isn't the Amazon rainforest. This is a strip of forest along the Atlantic that's just 7 percent of what it used to be. It's biodiversity is rivaled only by that of the Amazon. And the golden lion monkey is just darn cute. Even though it's a tamarin and not a monkey per se.

So anyway, check out the campaign, and click here to donate your $5 worth of trees. Mother Nature will thank you for it!

Feeding America

I saw a headline in a local freebie paper today about how our area food banks were running out of food. Already, many one-time food donors are heading to the food bank to accept donations, and more and more people squeezed by bad mortgages and job losses are heading to their doors.

Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest) is a national association of food banks. They're in 200 cities in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, and they're there for thousands of people when the going gets rough. They're also really efficient --more than 97 percent of the money taken in goes toward helping the hungry.

So check out Feeding America's charitable programs and learn more about how food banks help people in your area. Then, click here to donate your $5 for the week. And finally, check out the cupboard in the kitchen for some of that non-perishable food that's been sitting around, and drop it off at your local church or food bank. Heck, buy some extra at the grocery store next time.

We're all in this together, after all.

Giving is more important than ever

So here we are in the midst of an honest-to-God global financial crisis. Stocks have lost 20 percent in the past seven days, and are down roughly 40 percent for the year. This is bad, no question.

But it's only going to mean that there's going to be even more demand for charitable giving, and this is where Five Dollar Heroes comes in. Sure, people are going to cut back on the big gifts and efforts as they tighten their belts. But I think people can still come up with five bucks a week. How, you ask?

• Bring your lunch to work.
• Skip the latte one day a week, or switch to drip coffee for the week.
• Store brands are your friends when food shopping.
• Save on your electric bill (and the planet) by shutting off all unnecessary electronics at home.

There are plenty of other ideas, of course, and if you have one, e-mail me and I'll post it on the blog. But hey, the whole idea is that we can all find a way to scrape up five extra bucks and give it to folks who really need it. So find that extra fiver, and give it up!

Creative Arts Workshops for Kids

Sometimes, you've got to change the world one neighborhood at a time. So this week, Five Dollar Heroes is going local to help kids and teens in New York City to learn about leadership and community through art.

The Creative Arts Workshops for Kids provides after-school, weekend and summer programs for kids and teens in Harlem and Washington Heights. The kids work on a variety of art projects, all designed to benefit the community. For their part, the kids gain leadership and public-speaking skills, along with a great venue to express themselves.

Check out the great work of the Creative Arts Workshops for Kids by clicking here. The gallery page is downright cool; these artists have real skill that deserves to be supported. And finally, click here to donate your five bucks for the week. Use the big DONATE button, which will take you to PayPal. Put in 5.00 in the amount field on the top of that page, and you're good to go.

One final note: This charity is indeed local to me, and perhaps to one or two regular readers. It's a great charity, too, and no matter where you're from, your $5 will be well spent. Of course, if you have some other local charity in mind, feel free to donate there, too. And drop me a line about it -- I'm always on the lookout for a good cause!