By CHRIS MALETTE. AT LARGE
T'is the season, I guess.
The television ads have begun, the malls and stores are gearing up for Christmas and the annual assault on all of us to buy — or give — has begun.
On the giving front, there's no shortage of options. You can go big — the flat screen TIV, the latest electronic gee-gaw, gift cards, diamonds (not, I should add, on a newspaperman's pittance) — or you can go from the heart. There's a recent trend to give the gift in someone's name that can benefit the less fortunate in desperately poor corners of the globe.
One year, I bought my darlin' daughters goats on a farm in Kenya. At least I think the cheque I wrote eventually morphed into a cute l`il white goat hugged by some impoverished little African fellow like in the television ads.
As a guy who, over the course of my admittedly small-town journalism career, has been fortunate to hitch a ride on Hercs, Boeings and assorted other Canadian Forces aircraft, I can tell you there are some hellish places where kids are being raised in all pockets of the planet.
In one way or another, I've been brought to near tears or actually shed them in vacation hotspots such as Somalia, slums in Nairobi, Haiti — anywhere in Haiti — post-hurricane Honduras, a battered and tattered orphanage in Ciudad Obregon in Mexico's Sonora Desert and others.
It's far, far worse, kind reader, than the stuff you see from the bus shuttling you from the airport to your all-inclusive, believe me.
For that reason, one charity I can highly recommend is one I discovered some years ago when, as a reporter, I covered a speaking engagement by Murray Dryden, father of NHL puckstoppers Ken and Dave.
I've covered some inspiring speakers in my day, but the quiet, sincere Dryden convinced me his charity was the real deal and why I think anyone searching for some way to do a good deed in this season of excess could do no worse than to send some money for a "bed kit" to Sleeping Children Around the World.
Dryden, who started the charity in 1970 with his wife, Margaret, has since died, but the charity lives on and it's the kind I like — it's 100 per cent Canadian and it has another 100 per cent boast.
No portion of a bedkit donation is spent on administration — 100 per cent reaches a needy child, the charity proudly proclaims. Each $35 donation provides a bedkit that consists of a mat or mattress, pillow, sheet, blanket, mosquito net (if applicable), clothes outfit, towel and school supplies.
It's based on the premise that a child's life may be hellish and poor, but nothing can give him or her a better place to be at the end of a long day than a clean, warm, safe bed.
Since its founding by Murray and Margaret Dryden in 1970, SCAW has raised more than $23 million to provide bedkits for children in 33 countries. In 2009 the charity reached its millionth child.
One of Dryden's favourite quotes was: "There is nothing more peaceful than a sleeping child."
Amen to that.
For more on Sleeping Children Around the World, visit their website at http://www.scaw.org/about/index.html
Take it from a guy who's seen enough kids in enough hell holes in the "vacation hotspots" of the world, this charity is one that can make an instant and tangible difference in a child's life.
