Weekly Charity: Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial

More than 45 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. told us about his dream. On Tuesday, part of that dream will be realized with the inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation's 44th president.

But Obama would be the first to say that his election is but another step in the journey. Indeed, as time has gone on, that journey has become both more complex and more inclusive. Dr. King's work was not only focused on African-American rights, but civil rights for all people. He also championed victims of economic inequality as well.

So as long as there's injustice, there's a need to remember the efforts to fight it. The Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C., will do just that. This new memorial, to be located on the National Mall, will be left intentionally incomplete, so that victims of injustice and champions of equality can be memorialized in the future.

There's a lot to celebrate this week, and in the midst of celebrating where we are, it's good to remember where we came from. So click here to learn more about the memorial, and click here to donate $5 or more. In thanks for your donation, you'll receive a "Build the Dream" wristband and lapel pin. You can also download a search toolbar to support the memorial; for every search you make using the toolbar, the memorial gets another five cents.

Have a great holiday weekend, and good luck to our new president!

Weekly Charity: One Laptop Per Child

We're starting to see news articles about charities having to cut back due to the recession -- most recently it's been the One Laptop Per Child program, which, according to The Associated Press, has cut its staff in half.

The program is a good one, and deserves support. One Laptop Per Child provides low-cost, rugged laptop computers to children around the world who need them most. This gives kids in poor nations an opportunity to learn technology skills and link up with the broader world.

Right now, a laptop costs $199, though the group hopes to lower that to $100 in time. Thankfully, you can help by donating less that $199; perhaps if enough people donate $5 this week by clicking here, we'll have funded one more laptop that can bring one more child into a brighter future.

So check 'em out and give!

Weekly Charity: CARE

Both at home and abroad, poverty has been on the rise, and women continue to take the brunt of it, especially in rural areas and developing nations. CARE, which has been around since 1945, has focused on helping to lift women out of poverty, both here in the U.S. and around the world.

The nice thing about CARE is that while they help treat the symptions of poverty, such as providing food and shelter, they're primarily interested in stamping out poverty altogether by offering work programs, microloans, training and other long-term solutions.

This charity is a particularly good steward of donations -- all their financial information is right online here, and you can see that the bulk of donations go right to people who need help, instead of on mailings, hosting fundraisers, all that superfluous stuff.

So go ahead and check out what CARE does by clicking here, then go to their donation page and put down your $5 next to mine!

Suited for Change

The economy is bad, folks, and it's only going to get worse before it gets better. Low-income women, some of who may be either the primary family wage-earner or a single parent, are particularly vulnerable these days.

Suited for Change is an excellent charity in the Washington, D.C., area that helps these women obtain professional clothing and career counseling that can help them get and retain better-paying jobs. Clients come from a variety of disadvantaged backgrounds, and the charity "suits up" more than 100 women each month. Since 1992, the charity has helped 13,000 women transition to the workforce.

Yes, the right clothes and the right counsel can make all the difference. And so can we, especially when charities like Suited for Change will see more and more clients in the coming months. So check out their good work here, then click here to donate your five bucks. Together, maybe we can add one more woman to the workforce and help change a life.

If you're looking for a charity a little closer to your own home, check out The Women's Alliance, co-founded by the Suited for Change folks as an organization of charitable groups dedicated to helping low-income women gain employment.

Marine Corps Toys for Tots

'Tis the season, my fellow Heroes! The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is going up outside my office, and the bins for the Marine Corps Toys for Tots are already in place. And this is a very worthy charity, folks.

Toys for Tots is a program of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Like the Army Reserve and National Guard, these citizen soldiers are the same folks being called up to Iraq or Afghanistan. Each year, the reservists in communities around the country gather toys and distribute them via other charities to kids who might not otherwise have a present for Christmas.

So surf on over to check out the Toys for Toys program, and then click here to make a $5 donation along with me to help support their good work. And if you see those bins around town...even a simple gift would really make a difference to a kid.

Finally, for those concerned about the ever-earlier arrival of Christmas, don't count this post as evidence! Even the Marines need time to collect and distribute all these toys to the kids who need them. (Amphibious assault vehicles are much slower than reindeer.)

For those who served...the Wounded Warrior Project

I'm a day late, but for a good reason. Today is Veteran's Day, and I wanted to blog today about the Wounded Warrior Project in honor of this special day.

The WWP helps wounded soldiers not only cope with their injuries, but gives them practical and emotional support as well. Their programs aid severely injured soldiers with the new difficulties of everyday life, help wounded veterans get jobs after their military duties are done, and provide support groups so that the wounded soldiers can help each other contend with the stresses of both war and peace.

This is a great organization, and I urge you to check it out here. And then donate your five bucks by clicking here.

And to all our nation's veterans...thank you. Our nation owes you more than can ever be repaid.

Free Cakes for Kids!

First off, welcome to my new friends from BlogCatalog! Nice to see you drop by! Now go spam everyone you know and tell them to come here, too.....!

Now then. This week's charity comes courtesy of my sharp-eyed spouse, who saw an article on this in People and suggested it to me. Foster parent Toni Poulos of Trenton, Ga., made a birthday cake for one of her foster kids -- and it turned out the eight-year-old had never had a birthday cake before. Toni rightly figured that other kids didn't have a cake, either, and that someone should do something about it.

So she did. And others joined her. Today, Free Cakes for Kids is a network of dozens of home bakers who do what they can to bring a little happiness to the lives of kids around the country. They bake for the poor, the hospitalized, really anyone who needs one. Check out their site here, and you'll see that this little band of bakers are making a big difference.

And then click here to donate $5 to the cause -- in this case, that'll likely pay for the cake mix and icing!

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.

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!

Hole in the Wall Camps

Paul Newman readily confessed that he exploited his celebrity. Indeed, it was on every bottle of salad dressing, pasta sauce, salsa and popcorn his company produced: Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good.

The talented actor, director, producer and, yes, salad dressing impresario, died Friday at the age of 83. His Newman's Own Foundation got all the proceeds from his food business and, over the course of Newman's life, donated $250 million to various charities. Newman, of course, was rich, but he wasn't Bill Gates rich; the foundation probably gave away more than Newman earned over his entire career.

One of Newman's favorite charities was the Hole in the Wall Camps, which he helped start in 1988. These camps allow chronically ill children a chance to have a normal, fun camp experience. Over the past 20 years, more than 119,000 severely ill kids have been able to leave the hospitals, hospices and confining bedrooms and know what it's like to spend some time in the sun.

So in tribute to one of the great philanthropists of the past 30 years, Five Dollar Heroes is naming the Hole in the Wall Camps as the weekly charity. So check out what the camps do, and please, donate by clicking here. And yes, it's another $10 minimum. And yes, once again I think I need to rename the blog...!

Finally, if you're of an athletic bent, consider joining Team Hole in the Wall for your next race, and run on behalf of a local camp!

The Grameen Foundation

You've heard the old adage about the benefits of giving a guy a fish versus teaching him to fish. The Grameen Foundation, this week's charity, puts that into practice by providing poor people with the means to start businesses and lift themselves out of poverty.

The Grameen Foundation offers microloans to people around the world, mostly women, so they can start businesses. A loan of $100 may not seem like much here, but in Africa or Asia, that seed money can be used to start a business to save an entire family from hunger and homelessness. The foundation's partners set goals for the borrowers, in terms of business success as well as social success. Through Grameen and its many partners, thousands of people aren't just getting fed -- they're out of poverty for good.

A little money goes a long way...just like the Five Dollar Hero spirit! So click here to learn more about the Grameen Foundation, and then click here to donate your $5. I bet if all the blog's readers chipped in, we could, at the very least, fund one microloan somewhere, and help change a family's life.

Update: I may have to change the name of this blog...Grameen is only accepting $10 donations online. I'm going for it anyway, because I admire what they do. So make it $10!

Hurricane Ike disaster relief

This week's Five Dollar Hero entry gives you a choice in your efforts to assist those hit hard by Hurricane Ike out in Texas and Louisiana. This wasn't a Hurricane Katrina, but it was certainly bad enough to leave thousands homeless -- most temporarily, and some permanently.

I've always admired the work of Habitat for Humanity, but I never realized they were a ecumenical Christian ministry. For me, I'm perfectly fine with that; I think there are too few religious folks who put their money and time where their mouth is, and I give Habitat huge props for doing so. So check out Habitat's site and if you like what you see, donate to their Ike relief efforts.

All that said, I also promised to keep religion out of things as best I could on here. So if an ecumenical Christian housing ministry isn't your cup of tea, then I strongly encourage you to revisit the Red Cross National Disaster Relief Fund and donate as much as you can.

Note that neither Habitat nor the Red Cross are actually accepting $5 donations on their sites; it's a minimum of $10. But this is a big-deal storm, with lots of people who are suffering. So we can all collectively skip another latte this week, right? Go for it! Be a TEN Dollar Hero!

Save the Children

This week's charity comes courtesy of another reader (Thanks, Terri!) who noted the work that Save the Children was doing in the wake of Hurricane Gustav. I surfed on over to Save the Children's site and was immediately impressed.

Save the Children really does immense amount of work to help children through such an incredible variety of difficulties. Here in the U.S., they have literacy programs and aid for poorer kids, along with disaster relief. Abroad, they're fighting to give kids a better life no matter the circumstances -- poverty, war, disease, you name it.

They're also good with their money, too -- 90 percent of what they collect goes right to kids in need, with only 10 percent going to administrative costs and fundraising. (In nonprofit terms, that's really impressive.) Plus, they won't spam you unless you want more e-mail from them.

Really, this is just a wonderful organization, and I'm proud to slap my $5 down for them. I hope you join me. To learn more about Save the Children, click here. And to donate to the Global Action Fund, click here. You can also make memorial and gift donations, too.

The Achilles Track Club

Sorry about the lack of posts this past week, but business travel always takes a little more out of you than you expect. Especially when you end up in Cleveland for no good reason. But I digress.

This week's charity is also Five Dollar Heroes' first one that's reader-suggested (Thanks, Keith). The Achilles Track Club is a worldwide organization, with chapters in 60 countries, that purchases equipment and entry frees for disabled runners. The New York City chapter, for instance, is helping disabled runners get into the NYC Marathon. The organization even sponsors a triathlon team...and if that doesn't motivate you to hit the gym, nothing will.

To check out the team, click here. And to add your $5 to mine, click here. (On the drop-down list of programs, go ahead and put Achilles Track Club, unless surfing around the site has drawn you to a specific program.)

The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty

Hello, heroes! This week's charity focuses on homelessness and poverty right here in the United States. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty is the only national legal advocacy organization dedicated to preventing homelessness. They do it through litigation and public policy, as well as educational outreach. And they have a four-star rating from Charity Navigator, which means the bulk of our five dollar donations will be put to use directly helping the homeless.

For more information on the work of the NLCHP, click here. And to make your donation, click here. This is a PayPal site, so on top of the page, just enter 5 in the Unit Price field, and then enter your info below. And no, you don't have to have a PayPal account to donate. So get clicking, donate your $5, and then e-mail everyone you know so they can donate, too!

Doctors Without Borders

Here we go! The first organization I want to spotlight is Doctors Without Borders. Every day, some 27,000 doctors, nurses and medical professionals from all over the world go to where they're needed most -- usually the worst places on the planet, where plague, natural disaster and armed conflict have resulted in a critical need for medical care.

These medical professionals are the doctors and nurses next door, but instead of playing golf in their free time, they're going to Darfur or Georgia to care for others. They're making huge sacrifices, and in some cases, they're putting their lives on the line.

Our donations will help get these professionals to the place they're needed most, and give them the tools they need to treat those in desperate need. For more info on Doctors Without Borders and their activities, click here. And to put your five bucks down next to mine, click here for the donation page. And remember, when you donate, e-mail this blog to others so they can join us!