Adopt an endangered or protected animal
World Wildlife Fund www.wwf.ca/adopt Adopt a tiger, polar bear, wolf pup, etc.
www.adoptadolphin.org
This organisation does special Christmas orders for adopting dolphins and whales. The last postal dates for orders for Christmas adoptions is December 9th, 2004 for Canadians.
Buy Shares
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
AKA Farmer’s coops allow you to buy a share in a CSA project at the beginning of the growing season, and baskets are delivered to a neighbourhood drop-off point -- an excellent way for parents to ensure their children away at school get their vegetables. There's a national database of CSAs in Canada from Biodynamics. Équiterre has the most extensive list of CSAs in Quebec.
Ethical Investments
There are ethical investment options available to Canadians, examples include the Social Investment Organisation www.socialinvestment.ca, Canadian Alternative Investment Cooperative www.caic.ca and the Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation www.canadianworker.coop where money invested helps promote social change and alternative economic structures.
Buy someone a service
This is a very broad category, from giving people gift certificates which entitle them to your time (ex. One ice skating lesson, one walk in the park, one chat over coffee) or purchasing someone cooking classes, rock climbing lesson, or go to the symphony.
Make your own
www.adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/downloads/tshirt.html
Most normal people don’t have much time to make clothes, crafts, or cookies for their family and friends, but there are on-line resources for the busy. Adbusters suggests printing high resolution images from the internet and either printing them onto a t-shirt yourself or bringing it to a t-shirt printing shop to do it for you. You can buy a plain t-shirt from American Apparel or another sweat-free store and print your own images. Last year I heard of an artist who bought wholesale underwear from American Apparel and coloured them in her own original designs to give as Christmas gifts
There are also craft and kitchen ideas, like making infused oils and vinegars with dried herbs, peppercorns, and chili peppers, poured into a decorative bottle. Holiday baking selections are a nice gift, and spending an afternoon with people you love making them adds more fun. My sister made homemade fudge one year as gifts.
Donations
So many charities to choose from in order to personalise your donation so that it reflects the person in whose name you are donating. And most are tax deductible.
1 comment:
Buy a membership for a loved one/give in the name of someone
Giving to organizations in the name of others is one of the most practical ways we can take social action and raise awareness about a particular social problem.
One of the more interesting giving campaign I've come across is Ashoka's (www.ashoka.org) Give the Gift of Change campaign. You can actually give memberships to your friends and family (plus Ashoka sends them a set of social entrepreneurship postcards and a GOOD magazine subscription). You can give the gift here: http://www.ashoka.org/membership.
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