Leveraging your charitable gift.

[catnhatnh]

Right now with just a little work you can use the season to greatly enhance your "bang for the buck". Though I can't afford it this year I've did this in the past and hope maybe this will inspire a fellow DU'er. Here's what we did...

It was mid November and I was closing out the funds in a family Nascar pool. We found an excess of just about $200 that in past years would have gone to prizes for the winningest players and my job would be to split the cash and purchase awards. Now the players are by no means rich,but other than as a means of keeping score the cash was pretty meaningless...no one was "in it to win it" other than to break stones on the losers. So after consultation the members agreed that a gift to a charity was the way to go. My brother and I approached the manager of the local Market Basket supermarket who approved for us the purchase of the full $200 worth of frozen turkeys-at the Thanksgiving Sale price-and further agreed to hold the turkeys in his freezers until December 15th.

The sale price that year (2 years back) was 29 cents a lb (this years lowest is .48 locally), bringing in a 12-14lb turkey at about $4. The local food pantry was thrilled to receive 50 turkeys just in time for Christmas and with the 3 weeks notice had time enough to gather most the other basics of a great dinner and that year 50 local families got a meal to remember, while our pool folk got a happy glow over what their "game" had morphed into.

Anyhow, there's my suggestion...with just a little extra work you can take a gift you planned for anyhow and make it swell in impact. The same turkeys will cost $6-7 this year but think of the joy you could bring to so many hurting families this year with a little leverage.

Or just buy the one extra yourself this week-most sales allow the purchase of two-and ask your friends and families to do the same. It is a smaller gesture but a worthy one. It's the one I CAN afford this year.