You Can Make A Difference With Your Clicks

You may have heard about them in your online time. You may not think they don't really help. You may not think that they are legitimate. You may have never heard of them. I'm talking about click-to-give sites where you click to engage in online activities and a specified amount of funds are released on your behalf and are donated to those in need. Yes, I'm sure that they are sites that are poor in quality or do not do what they claim. I'm sharing with you click-to-give sites where I click daily or regularly, am well-acquainted with and am convinced are legitimate, really seeking to help the needy. Normally, unless my computer is acting up, visiting these sites and clicking in the designated areas takes just minutes out of my day. I recommend clicking to give especially for those of you who spend much time on your computers and who want to use part of that time to make a difference for causes you care about and at no cost to you. These sites themselves make it clear that they are supplementing the "actual giving" that we need to do for causes we care about, and most of these sites include options to make "actual donations."

More recently, I have discovered another click-to-give networked site, called click-to-care. At this networked site, you have the option of clicking as well as sharing via Facebook, and tweeting. This site includes a number of causes, including helping in the fight against world hunger, children's medical care, disaster relief, the environment, helping to save animals, helping increase the world's supply of clean water, building schools worldwide, and a couple more. I have found this networked site on a link at this web page that houses all known click-to-give sites on the Internet. As of the past few months, I have bookmarked this webpage and I go there on most mornings, unless circumstances prevent it, to click on sites which I feel are most effective, legitimate and represent causes that I care most about. I spend at least a half hour each day, clicking at the sites that say that my clicks generate funds for cause which I care most about. I know that my clicks on any of these sites may amount to only pennies, but I know that, over time, these small funds add up and this holds true especially when some of these sites are shared and many other people click at the designated places at these sites. At this webpage there are links to numerous sites and pages. These sites represent a wide variety of causes, including education, fighting poverty and world hunger, saving the environment, fipreventing and ghting animal cruelty, conserving energy, funding health care (especially for children, preventing and ending teen suicide, conquering cancer (especially breast cancer), and more. The webpage that houses all these sites does include outdated sites and duplicate sites. This webpage can be found at:
http://www.thenonprofits.com.

Want a site where you can help save children's lives? There is a site for that. It's called the Tarahumara Children's Hospital Fund. The clicks done at this site are calculated monthly. Your clicks at this site actually help fund a children's hospital and keeps it open so health care providers can keep serving destitute children. This site provides much detail in their stories and photos of all that is being done to meet the various needs of the children served and how their lives are not only being saved but are being changed. Daily, you click on a designated button and you will see a count of clicks as they add up in real-time each month. After you click, you are given a link where you can visit a page where you can view a chart that gives a breakdown of how everyone's collective clicks help keep the Tarahumara Children"s Hospital open and the the hours of hospital care that everyone's clicks have funded that month. Yes, the clicks you make at this site supplement the work done for the children served through actual public donations. Moved to give of your financial resources to increase your impact? Your actual donations are warmly welcome where there is a donation button. But to click daily, no donated is required. To visit this site, go to http://www.tchforegon.org/.

Want a site where your clicks help different charities that are trusted and help causes that most of us care about? There's a a site for that. It's simply called Click-To-Give, Give To Charity For Free! At this site you click once to help 6 different charities, adding up to 6 clicks per day. These clicks benefit abused animals, abused children, poor children, the homeless, children with cancer, and sponsors individual needy children. Your daily clicks to each charity may add up to pennies per day, but if many people click for each charity daily, the clicks add up and much good can be done. At the "Follow Our Progress" tab on the left of the site, you can see that many thousands of clicks for charity were done the previous month. There are six designated click buttons for each charity. Again, though you can click each button over and over, only one click at each of the 6 buttons per day actually releases funds for the designated nonprofits. And though I have never taken advantage of it, you can "earn points" and be able to "claim rewards" of free items purchased from the charities involved; there is a "rewards store" for this. As you click each button for each charity, you are assured that 100 percent of sponsor money goes directly to the designated charities. To track your individual progress on this site and to "earn points" and be able to "claim prizes," you need to set up an account with this site. But it is worth it in that you are encouraged as you can see how, over time, your clicks are actually helping multiple causes and trusted nonprofits. I encourage you to visit this site; do it at: http://www.clicktogive.com?ref=42267.  UPDATE: I have lost my account on this site and the administrator(s) at the site were totally unresponsive to my concerns and banned me from their Facebook page. If you click at this site, please bear this in mind.

Want to check out a site for a cause that uses multiple social networks to empower you to get involved and which is expanding in scope? Join My Village (JMV) is for you. JMV is an iniative partnership between General Mills, Merck and the CARE organization. General Mills and Merck have committed to donating money to CARE but this is done only through your clicks and through money donations which they match with their money. All these $$$ go to CARE so the nonprofit can better serve girls and women in Malawi, one of the poorest areas in the world and in Africa. JMV helps girls and women through giving them educational opportunities, empowering them to break the cycle of deep poverty. And this year, JMV has expanded to serve girls and women in India, also through the means of educational opportunties. JMV focuses on girls and women because it's females who, by far, are denied educational opportunties and because when they do receive such opportunites, the payoff is much greater because educated women bear fewer children, are better wives and mothers and are able to take better care of their families. And they increase their earning power and are in a far better position, when educated, to support their families and serve society. JMV runs a Facebook page where every interaction with it releases funds to CARE for girls and women; this page is linked to their site whose link I will soon be sharing. They run a Facebook cause which is linked to the page. And they run a website which is also interactive and where funds are released every time you click to perform online activities there or share these activities with those in your network. Your clicks are worth $1-$3 a click. When you enter this site, you can see that, over time, well over $1 million have been donated to JMV. On the Facebook page, the cause site and on the JMV website, you can view different photoes, videos, slideshows and stories. JMV shows how everyone's daily clicks and matched donations actually help these girls and women, where the $$$ are going and how these girls and women's lives are being changed for the better. Not content to just click but also feel moved to share your financial resources" On their site, JMV provide a donation button where your donations are warmly welcome but not required to click and click over and over. You can visit this updated, revamped website at: http://www.joinmyvillage.com/.

Want to make a difference for 8 different, popular causes each day? There is a network of 8 linked, click-to-give sites that are for you. These click-to-give sites are called the Greater Good Network sites. There are 8 different sites where you can help feed hungry children, help feed rescued animals, help provide free mammograms for needy women, help feed homeless veterans, help provide therapy for autistic children, help fund health care for needy children, help provide books for needy children, and help preserve rainforests. The 8 sites are all linked so that you can click the 8 designated buttons in less than two minutes per day, assuming your computer is running at full capacity. No matter which site you visit, you will see 8 tabs at the top of each site where you can see the sites as linked and which make clicking daily both easy and efficient. As you click the designated tabs 8 times, each time you are assured that 100 percent of sponsor money goes to each cause. You can click over and over on each tab, but only one click on each designated click button per day will actually release funds for each of the 8 causes. On each site, you can read stories and see photos about how needy people are being helped in so many ways and how your clicks make a difference. Want to do more than to just click? There is an online, comprehensive store, accessible no matter what site you are visiting. All funds from purchases made through online shopping made on this site go to the designated causes, so you can shop online here and make a difference! Also, at each site you will find many online petitions that are relevant to each cause. So even if you have no money, you can give your time at these sites and make a difference in many different ways! Here is where you can visit these sites: http://www.thehungersite.com, http://www.thebreastcancersite.com, http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com, http://www.theveteranssite.com, http://www.theautismsite.com,
http://www.thechildhealthsite.com, http://www.theliteracysite.com, http://www.therainforestsite.com.

I don't want to give the wrong message here, that online, free (to you) clicking at certain websites replaces the offline serving, caring and sharing with those in need or the giving of one's material resources. I just want to show that you can do great good with your clicks and that if you are in an life situation where you feel that your ability to serve and give to others is limited, there are still options. And I know that there are some who will never trust click-to-give sites and are paranoid about what they click. This is understandable in light of the scams and viruses that are rampant online. If you wonder why clicks are limited, for the most part, to one daily click or in other ways limited? This is to prevent computer crashes and abuse and also because sponsors have limited funds for clicks. I know a number of you already click on some of these sites and good for you! I hope that because of this blog more people will be steered to what I feel are legitimate, quality click-to-give sites.

http://www.thenonprofits.com
This is the webpage that houses all known click-to-give sites on the Internet and can be bookmarked for easy access and navigation.

Advocates and Self--Advocates

I'm sure that all of us are familiar with the term "advocate," which many people in my social network use as titles for themselves and which appears on their social networking profiles. A number even include this title in their screennames. But many of you reading this may not be as familiar with the term and title of "self-advocate." What is that? I have been aware of this term and title for many years and its is usually used in the general disability community. This term was coined because, by its very nature, have a disability (s) means that one will find oneself in situations where one will need to advocate for one's needs and seek accommodations and understanding for them in order to live in society and with one's family. So, an advocate is one who speaks on behalf of others who do not have a voice to speak up for themselves, and a self-advocate is one who has special needs or disabilities that may need accommodation or understanding and who needs to speak up in his or her own behalf, to make this happen. Self-advocacy as a concept or title did not exist decades ago, when many people with disabilities were insitutionalized or where many with special needs were segregated in special education classes and then sent to live at home with their families, or worse. Out of sight, out of mind. But the concept of self-advocacy has changed that.

Currently, many in the autism community are stirred up because of scheduled hearings this upcoming Thursday that are to focus on autism. I learned about thse pending hearings last Thursday, on Thanksgiving Day when I was scrolling on Facebook. Since then, I found the webpage for how people can find their US Representatives and contact them. Initially, no autistic persons were invited and there was much uproar over this. The disability community has a slogan, "Nothing About Us Without Us." This means that no one should be making any decisions for a self-advocate that does not take into consideration what the person thinks or wants. I have been spending much time sharing the link to the House of Representatives webpage that links to their websites and their information, including their contact information. I have been sharing with people the link to my Change.org petition and asking people to share with their Representatives this petition and its mission, to obtain funds for underserved low-income children and all adults with suspected or diagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). I have granted that research has it role, in learning better ways to diagnose autism than we have at present, and to improve the quality of services. But I have been stressing that people ask their Representatives to examine my petition and its mission and to consider mentioning my petition and its mission at the hearing.

I do have fear about the outcome of these pending autism hearings this Thursday. I was delighted to learn from a Facebook post from a ASD self-advocacy group, that the CEO of that nonprofit in question, had been invited to the hearing. Also, the President of another ASD self-advocacy nonprofit also has been invited to the pending Thursday autism hearings. Since then, I have been scrambling to get the attention of the "big voices" in the autism community to examine my petition and to consider mentioning it at the hearings this upcoming Thursday. This unfortunately has not happened and my petition is unlikely to be mentioned at all by the "big voices" in the autism community who have been invited to the pending autism hearing. I know that other nonprofits, which favor research and "finding cures" for autism, are also being invited and have an equal right to their say at these pending hearings. My fear is that whatever happens this upcoming Thursday, at 2:00 PM, that the funds that are written in my petition letter may be allocated to things other than the badly needed services for those children of low-income families, and all adults with ASDs, that are not available now to these underserved persons. I fear that my petition's mission and goal may be hindered and that too many funds will go to research.

As far as my petition goes, yesterday several people in the autism community have taken it upon themselves to try to convince me what is wrong with my petition. One person has told me that it is "poorly written." When I challenged him to tell me what he meant by ths statement, he declared that my petition calls for people with "suspected ASDs" to have access to services and that this provision would open wide the door to many to "abuse the system." In vain, I sought to share with this person how the very process of seeking an ASD diagnosis is tedious, requiring much paperwork and "jumping through hoops" that should discourage most persons who would "abuse the system." I apparently wasted my time as others joined this person in ranting about scammers "abusing the system" and that "petitions are useless." I agreed that there is potential for abuse in making services available to those awaiting a diagnosis of ASD, just as there is with any good thing. I declared: "Every person with a diagnosed ASD at one time had a suspected ASD." All to no avail. At this time, I an unable to have any illusions that most peope in thi community appreciate, much less enthusiastically support, my efforts to try to obtain funds for the many underserved low-income children and all adults, with suspected or diagnosed ASDs. After this Thursday, I may be forced to re-think my entire petition and may need to make more painful revisions and do more research. As a Christian, I realize that whatever happens is in God's hands and that I have no control over the response of others whom I have been trying to appeal to.

This brings me to my point of why people with "suspected ASDs" even though there is a chance of abuse of such a provision, should be covered in services for those with ASDs. For if one has challenges in relating to other people and in thinking as they do but has no diagnosis to "label" these challenges, how can he or she speak up effectively? How can one with a condition that is there but is not confirmed with an official diagnosis, have the confidence to tell people what he or she needs if there is no system by which to identify it? In the free world, we live in cultures where documentation is respected and which bolsters credibility. And as I pointed out to the people in the autism group who were trying to discredit my petition, all of those who have an officially disagnosed ASD, at one point had a "suspected ASD." This obviously holds true of every person, whatever his or her age. So withholding services from those who "just have suspected ASDs" does not make sense. If those who are lucky enough to have a correct diagnosis were treated in this way when their conditions were "just suspected," they would never have been diagnosed. This has always been my problem and challenge. I cannot tell you of the countless times and situations where a correct diagnosis would have probably gotten me understanding and opportunties and accommodations! This holds true not only in my childhood but also in my adulthood, and in my family and my community. But so far, when questions have been asked of my family about me or to me, there was no good explanation for my challenges. "Oh that is just the way she is," has always been a typical "apology" for me. At times, I cannot help but feel a pang of jealousy for those in the autism community who have the validation and understanding of an official diagnosis.

I would like to make an appeal to those of you who are reading this. I realize that a number of you may already be familiar with what I am about to ask and forgive me for what will be to you a repeat appeal. I would like my readers who live in the US to contact your Representatives, if at all able and this is very urgent as the autism hearings are this upcoming Thursday at 2:00 PM. I appeal to you to share with your Representative the importance of these hearings and to consider attending. I'm asking you to share with your Representative my petition with the link http://tiny.cc/mrsahw, and ask your Representative to examine this petition and to consider mentioning the petition and its mission at the hearing. Your letter need not be long and should be respectful, concise and to the point. You can find your Representative here: http://www.house.gov/representatives/find. You letter can be composed much like this sample letter:

Dear-----------------------------,

I am a concerned citizen and (you can fill in about your situation in relation to autism or your desire to show your support). I have learned about the pending autism hearings this Thursday at 2:00 PM. I understand that among the topics to be discussed, what will be covered is where autism funds should be allocated. Research has its role and some funds should go for it. But my primary concern is that most funds be allocated to services for underserved persons. These include those with suspected or diagnosed ASDs who come from low income families who cannot pay for services, or who are adults. There is a Change.org petition at http://tiny.cc/mrsahw and I invite you to examine it and its mission and goal. I ask you that, if you are able to, to attend the autism House hearings this Thursday, and to mention this Change.org petition, its mission and its goal at the hearings. If you are unable to attend the hearings, please examine the petition and send it to other House Members who may be able to attend the hearings. Your service and support mean very much to me and to all persons with ASDs.

Thank you very much for your service to our country
Most Respectfully,
(Your Name)


You can search for your Representative by zip code. Like me, you may get more than one Representative and you will be asked to either search by using a map of your area or by supplying the last four digits of your zip code. I did not have the option of emailing my Representative but my letter to him had to be faxed. In that case, I do not know what to tell you. But most of you should be able to find the option to email your Representatives. If you truly do not have time or do not feel that you are able to compose a concise, to-the-point letter to your Representative, I hope that you will share this with others or show your support in other ways. This is a very urgent matter which can affect the futures of many people, including future generations.