I didn't see this posted, but to be fair I do miss things sometimes.
Should we try and do some form of donation or RealWorldHero for the victims of Sandy? Would draw some attention I would think and generally be a nice thing to do.
I could get behind that.
I could get behind it as well, whether we get any publicity for it or not.
The 2012 Real World Hero charity drive kicked off tonight, in fact! We had been discussing the same idea as well. Great minds think alike.
Let's get some suggestions from folks about a particular charity we could donate to that would benefit those in need after Hurricane Sandy. We'll add another donation widget to the others on the Real World Hero website right away.
A personal friend of Mrs. W and I lost her home and everything in it and we mobilized mutual friends to raise over $7000 for her and her family this week. People are ready to be generous to those in need after the hurricane.
Got a link for that? Something I could periodically plug in Virtue chats?
The four big charities assisting with Sandy are:
American Red Cross
Humane Society
Habitat for Humanity
Salvation Army
The big two IMO are Red Cross and the Humane Society. Red Cross because, duh, Red Cross. The Humane Society because people in an emergency situation cannot care for their animals, and their animals are helpless to care for themselves. :-\
Quote from: Aggelakis on November 02, 2012, 06:31:40 AM
The four big charities assisting with Sandy are:
American Red Cross
Humane Society
Habitat for Humanity
Salvation Army
The big two IMO are Red Cross and the Humane Society. Red Cross because, duh, Red Cross. The Humane Society because people in an emergency situation cannot care for their animals, and their animals are helpless to care for themselves. :-\
I would say either HS or HfH.
Red Cross honestly gets TONS of aid (to be fair they do a crapton of work, too).. Humane Society kinda holds a special place for me 'cause I am a soft hearted animal lover, and Habitat is helping people rebuild their lives.. so, ya know.
Quote from: Quinch on November 02, 2012, 06:10:00 AM
Got a link for that? Something I could periodically plug in Virtue chats?
http://realworldhero.com
We'll be running the charity drive through December 15th this year. We will be hosting or supporting various in-game events over the coming weeks. Follow RWH on Facebook (http://facebook.com/realworldhero) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/realworldhero) for updates, too.
Slight derail here:
Mr. W, I gave a friend your RWH email. He found out about RWH today when I posted about the auction, and will be seeing about possibly getting a late entry in to the auction. :)
/derail
Quote from: Zolgar on November 02, 2012, 07:23:50 AM
Slight derail here:
Mr. W, I gave a friend your RWH email. He found out about RWH today when I posted about the auction, and will be seeing about possibly getting a late entry in to the auction. :)
/derail
Thanks! I just replied to his email, too. :)
Gotcha. Which one of those focuses most on saving lives, rather than morale boosting?
Quote from: Quinch on November 02, 2012, 10:34:39 AM
Gotcha. Which one of those focuses most on saving lives, rather than morale boosting?
Red Cross would be focused on saving and preserving human life.
Humane Society would be focused on saving animal life and gently putting the unpreservable out of any misery.
Habitat for Humanity would be focused on improving and restoring quality of human life.
Yeah, that I've read so far - none of them are on the RWH page, though.
As was said, Red Cross and Humane Society are being pushed heavily by the mainstream media, here in the States. There are a few major drives planned, including a prime-time concert. Habitat will be the one going in to help rebuild, of the ones listed, and they are often forgotten. I'd suggest them.
My votes would be for the Humane Society and Habitat.
Red Cross and Habitat would be my preferences, both as resonance with heroics (life-saving and life-affirming) and, in Habitat's case, because they might need the most help.
Considering that our goal for City of Heroes this whole time has been to either find it a new home or build it one, I think Habitat for Humanity is the fitting choice. And if we did do it, we could even call our part of the effort "Heroes for Humanity".
I think it's a great idea. Let's show 'em what heroes are made of.
My vote is for Habitat for Humanity with a collected blood donation drive for the Red Cross.
I like it. I'll look into getting info for Habitat posted to the RWH site as soon as I can this morning.
And I'm a huge advocate of blood/platelet/plasma donation, so I will post information links for that as well. I donate platelets every 2 weeks and whole blood every 8 weeks. I'd love to help mobilize heroes and rally donations of blood products. There were quite a few blood centers shut down because of the hurricane, causing a significant dip in the available blood resources for the area. I'll see if I can find the article I was reading about this. It is an important aspect of any disaster relief.
I used to donate blood but after living in England for 10 years now I am back in the states they won't allow me to donate due to the Mad cow disease.
I also like the Salvation Army and I am a non-christian native american! The Red Cross appears to be hopelessly muddled in the area but the Salvation Army helps - period.
Quote from: Mr. Wentworth on November 02, 2012, 02:52:23 PM
I like it. I'll look into getting info for Habitat posted to the RWH site as soon as I can this morning.
And I'm a huge advocate of blood/platelet/plasma donation, so I will post information links for that as well. I donate platelets every 2 weeks and whole blood every 8 weeks. I'd love to help mobilize heroes and rally donations of blood products. There were quite a few blood centers shut down because of the hurricane, causing a significant dip in the available blood resources for the area. I'll see if I can find the article I was reading about this. It is an important aspect of any disaster relief.
Unfortunately IU probably won't be able to donate blood during the course of RWH.
My last donation was October 21st.
Quote from: Ironwolf on November 02, 2012, 02:59:26 PMI also like the Salvation Army and I am a non-christian native american! The Red Cross appears to be hopelessly muddled in the area but the Salvation Army helps - period.
I would urge anyone who believes in equal rights for LGBT people to seriously think twice before donating to that organisation.
Quote from: Ironwolf on November 02, 2012, 02:59:26 PM
I used to donate blood but after living in England for 10 years now I am back in the states they won't allow me to donate due to the Mad cow disease.
I also like the Salvation Army and I am a non-christian native american! The Red Cross appears to be hopelessly muddled in the area but the Salvation Army helps - period.
This.
As an aside to the above comment, no idea how the Salvation Army has anything to do with gay rights, since they arn't in the business of law/politics. First time I've heard of such a thing honestly.
Quote from: Sleepy Wonder on November 04, 2012, 04:58:32 AM
This.
As an aside to the above comment, no idea how the Salvation Army has anything to do with gay rights, since they arn't in the business of law/politics. First time I've heard of such a thing honestly.
"Salvation Army Major Andrew Craibe tells LGBT journalists Serena Ryan and Pete Dillon that non-celibate LGBT people should be put to death in an interview on the podcast "Salt and Pepper."
http://soundcloud.com/johnmbecker/salvation-army-major-lgbt (http://soundcloud.com/johnmbecker/salvation-army-major-lgbt)
Several members of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community claim that the Salvation Army preaches intolerance of homosexuality, since the group clearly states that they do not believe that the homosexual lifestyle is in accordance with Biblical scripture
http://digitaljournal.com/article/315320#ixzz2BEBxkkni (http://digitaljournal.com/article/315320#ixzz2BEBxkkni)
Ignoring the politics, if they are readily helping to provide assistance in the wake of *any* disaster, they should be commended for their efforts.
There are many organizations who have some aspects of their organization I can safely say I despise, with the SA being one in particular. That doesn't mean that I am incapable of recognizing the good they provide.
"Gay people should be put to death" is an atrocious, horrible thing to say; there are very few things worthy of death, and if you pay attention in the Bible, the connection of death sentences to homosexuality is very tightly focused - in context - around groups of sodomites who are actively raping and abusing people. (Yes, the Leviticus laws are less contextual, but since the Law of Moses was fulfilled and replaced with "love thy neighbor as thyself" as a central tennent, and "I the Lord will judge whom I will judge, but of you it is required that you forgive all men," I think it safe to say that any judgmental pronouncements of earthly punishment for choices - sinful or not - that do not harm others are non-Christian.)
MOST of the organizations that are attacked these days for being "Anti-gay" are actually being attacked for daring to think that homosexual sex is a sin. I don't know about you, but I don't think believing that lying is a sin makes me against freedom of speech, as an example. It is not my place, either, to judge liars (other than as needed to, you know, determine if I can trust what they tell me or not). Therefore, I get really tired of it being claimed that not condoning homosexuality is somehow oppressing those who suffer or enjoy and/or practice it. It's their business.
I refuse to get into "gay marriage" as a debate topic in the Save CoH forum and certainly not in the hopefully a-political relief effort thread for Hurricane Sandy. Can we please stop bad-mouthing charitable organizations for daring to have religious beliefs? I know my own Church, though decidedly in the "homosexual sex is a sin" camp, would never turn away gay people in need. So let's focus on actually loving our neighbors and not on fomenting division, please.
I think the point was that, in our efforts on other threads to reach out to LBGT media, as CoH has always had a reputation for being LGBT-friendly, to suggest donating to an organization that has is openly antagonistic toward them could be seen as disingenuous on our part, to say the least. I tend to prefer Goodwill, because it, like I, is a-religious. That said, I do support Habitat, even though it has a religious core. There are a number of personal reasons for this, and I do not see it as contradicting anything I believe, mostly because I have yet to see the "upper management" of Habitat take any kind of open political stance.
(VFW was strictly for the discounts; I'm not always blue-side... ;))
Quote from: Segev on November 04, 2012, 02:47:53 PM
I refuse to get into "gay marriage" as a debate topic in the Save CoH forum and certainly not in the hopefully a-political relief effort thread for Hurricane Sandy. Can we please stop bad-mouthing charitable organizations for daring to have religious beliefs? I know my own Church, though decidedly in the "homosexual sex is a sin" camp, would never turn away gay people in need. So let's focus on actually loving our neighbors and not on fomenting division, please.
Quote from: Terwyn on November 04, 2012, 05:22:27 AM
Ignoring the politics, if they are readily helping to provide assistance in the wake of *any* disaster, they should be commended for their efforts.
There are many organizations who have some aspects of their organization I can safely say I despise, with the SA being one in particular. That doesn't mean that I am incapable of recognizing the good they provide.
Yeah, but you also could give to a charity that isn't terrible too. There's better charities out there.
Ones that don't spend significant amounts of their donated funds to make sure that LGBT people's lives are worse off.
Quote from: dwturducken on November 04, 2012, 02:57:52 PM
I think the point was that, in our efforts on other threads to reach out to LBGT media, as CoH has always had a reputation for being LGBT-friendly, to suggest donating to an organization that has is openly antagonistic toward them could be seen as disingenuous on our part, to say the least. I tend to prefer Goodwill, because it, like I, is a-religious. That said, I do support Habitat, even though it has a religious core. There are a number of personal reasons for this, and I do not see it as contradicting anything I believe, mostly because I have yet to see the "upper management" of Habitat take any kind of open political stance.
(VFW was strictly for the discounts; I'm not always blue-side... ;))
Such as said here.
Quote from: Osborn on November 05, 2012, 05:26:48 PM
Yeah, but you also could give to a charity that isn't terrible too. There's better charities out there.
Ones that don't spend significant amounts of their donated funds to make sure that LGBT people's lives are worse off.
Perhaps that is true of the SA in the US. It may not be the case in other countries.
Any charity that actually seeks to worsen the lives of individuals shouldn't be supported anyway.
Quote from: Terwyn on November 05, 2012, 05:37:25 PM
Perhaps that is true of the SA in the US. It may not be the case in other countries.
Any charity that actually seeks to worsen the lives of individuals shouldn't be supported anyway.
I have to admit that, I can't speak for the organization's actions
outside of America. Call that a failing of me or of an American in general, if you wish, but it is as it is.
Quote from: Osborn on November 05, 2012, 05:44:08 PM
I have to admit that, I can't speak for the organization's actions outside of America. Call that a failing of me or of an American in general, if you wish, but it is as it is.
I'd still have to see proof before I accept that claim. Don't worry too much about it - I've found that too many people around the world don't have sufficient awareness about other countries in the first place - even those of us who've studied to work internationally.
Quote from: Terwyn on November 05, 2012, 05:56:33 PM
I'd still have to see proof before I accept that claim. Don't worry too much about it - I've found that too many people around the world don't have sufficient awareness about other countries in the first place - even those of us who've studied to work internationally.
I know that I guess, but I could sort of already hear the eyes rolling in people's heads. "Oh, and American doesn't know how stuff works outside of America. Reeeeal original that!"
That said, I guess read this (http://www.bilerico.com/2011/11/why_you_shouldnt_donate_to_the_salvation_army_bell.php) if you care. If not, that's fine.
The thing too they promote the Red Cross there, but about the Red Cross, is that I've been personally banned for life for my orientation despite having no STDs/STIs and having a desirable blood type (O+), but I've recently heard conflicting stories on who is to blame for that, so I don't really know what to think about the Red Cross.
Quote from: Osborn on November 05, 2012, 06:00:11 PM
I know that I guess, but I could sort of already hear the eyes rolling in people's heads. "Oh, and American doesn't know how stuff works outside of America. Reeeeal original that!"
I'm Canadian, Osborn. Half the humour of my country wouldn't work without that perception. :P
Quote from: Terwyn on November 05, 2012, 06:05:15 PM
I'm Canadian, Osborn. Half the humour of my country wouldn't work without that perception. :P
About a quarter of the humor of my own wouldn't work without that perception either but I still don't like being part of the problem when I can avoid it.
Quote from: Osborn on November 05, 2012, 06:00:11 PM
That said, I guess read this (http://www.bilerico.com/2011/11/why_you_shouldnt_donate_to_the_salvation_army_bell.php) if you care. If not, that's fine.
Pretty specific accusations in the above article. But where are the links to the original source material? If you're going to make a claim about something the SA did, where's the links to the original news articles that reported these things?