Pilgrim Soldier

While I was in England I discovered the (Red) Project. At first glance this seems like a wonderful project and is a great idea as the money raised is going to save lives! Well known brands like American Express, Motorola, Apple and Gap are going to give away huge amounts of money when people buy or use their (Red) labeled products. In a world that desperately needs more funding to be put into HIV/AIDS research this can only be applauded.

But for those of us who follow a different path I suspect that we should try to avoid it! We shouldn’t fall for a clever marketing gimmick in order to put money into work for those far less fortunate than ourselves, and lets make no mistake, almost everyone (if not everyone) who reads this will be more fortunate than the victims of AIDS who will be helped.

Should we spend $200 on a red iPod simply so we can give $10 to AIDS research? Should we buy a new mobile phone from Motorola simply so a percentage of our bills can support others? Or are we called to a different path? Are we called to a road that sees us giving the $200 to God’s work in some way and forgo the iPod?

For the last 5 years I have tried to raise the necessary money to run the children’s day centre that Zoe & I set up and Zoe runs. Believe it or not it costs only about $50 000 per year to run, yet this year we are falling the best part of $10 000 short of that aim. It’s going to be a similar story next year as well. It frustrates me no end that these big corporations line their own pockets first and then give such tiny proportions of their huge profits away, while I can’t even raise $50 000 to help underprivileged kids. In the 9 months since I started this blog I have purposefully not used it to raise any money, but maybe I should just once!

So in a totally shameless parody of Project (Red) I challenge you instead to put your hand in your pocket for a few of whatever currency you like and send it to your national Salvation Army fundraising department as a donation to Patverums Children’s Day Centre in Riga, Latvia (see link on the right) and let me know that you’ve done it by using the contact me form on this blog. I can’t give you anything in return except the knowledge that you will be helping kids here to have a slightly better life.