One of the things I hate about this time of year are all the people and companies that take up charity work for the season. Paper cutouts of trees and balloons stack up on the side of counters and bored clerks ask you to donate a dollar to This or That.

Honestly, I don’t care if you want to donate a dollar or not. Your money, your choice. But I always get boggled when people glare at you when you turn them down. Especially those bell ringing red can Salvation Army types.

I’m always polite about it when I turn down the asker simply saying, I donate my money to St. Judes. The people that irritate me are the ones who persist on asking for donations. Oh but it’s only a dollar! It’s a good cause!

So is donating my funds to a charity that takes care of children with cancer. St. Jude never turns a child away for care because their families can’t afford to pay for treatments. They’ve saved so many lives and are involved in tons of research towards finding cures. It may only be a dollar, but I know that it goes a long way when I donate to them.

Most people already have a charity of choice that they donate to. There are hundreds of thousands of charities all working towards a common goal of making life in this world better. Some people are adamant about breast cancer research because it has personally affected their life (Susan Koman among others), protecting and helping babies born prematurely reach childhood (March of Dimes), providing food and shelter for the homeless (Salvation Army), collecting toys for kids who’s parents can’t afford them (Toys for Tots), or providing money to your place of worship… the list goes on indefinitely.

There is a charity for everyone, that touches your life in a special way so that you feel the urge to do something extra to help out. And it really bothers me when people don’t respect that and try to hawk an extra dollar out of you with a guilt trip. Grimy bastards.

The reason I support St. Jude is because they worked hard to save the life of a friend of mine. In the fall of 2007, one of the girls who lived down the street thought she was coming down with bronchitis and went to the doctor. As it turned out, she had a special case of leukemia and was given only a few months to live. We hung out pretty often since our boyfriends liked to drink together and we enjoyed beating them soundly at poker. I helped her name her kitten PBandJ because he was so colorfully marked.

She was my age and visiting her in the hospital after work was one of the hardest things. Watching her beautiful hair fall out and how she’d keep it tied up in a ponytail so it wouldn’t be noticeable. I used to joke with her when she’d go out for walks with her IV and sneak smoke breaks behind the bushes (and really when you are given only months to live, I doubt quitting is a big priority).

She’d always light up when we brought Jasbaz with us because she loved kids and she’d known Jas since she was hiding out in my burgeoning belly. The nurses would always scold her for touching Jas because she could get sick and with the chemo treatments was essentially risking her life. But she loved playing with her anyway.

She did die within their time table, the one you always hope ardently is wrong. At 21. She was only a year older than me, a neighbor who lived down the street, one who was always talking about kids she’d have and things she’d do. Due to a disease that isn’t yet treatable and springs out of genetics.

When I make my donation, I make it for her.

So I guess my question is this, for those of you in the sharing mood, what charity in your life do you support? Do you do it monetarily, volunteering time, or skills? And best of all, why?

Please feel free to elaborate. That comment box will stretch indefinitely, you know. ;)