Heroes and Homeless

With the holiday season right over the next hill, I've begun thinking about charity, volunteerism and giving back.

On the one hand, I've been a big proponent of "Support the Troops but Protest the War". Our troops - our citizens - our brothers, sisters, mothers, daughters, sons and husbands are over there fighting and giving their lives. I thought, and still do, that it was a mistake to go to war with Iraq. I strongly believe the US needs to hand over power to the UN and the UN needs to bring in a strongly Arab/Muslim-based Peacekeeping force. As long as we remain there, we will continue to fuel the insurgency and this will turn into the next Vietnam.

But like I said - our troops are over there and many of them will be staying over there for Christmas, Hannukah and Yule. Part of supporting them includes "adopting" a few and sending them presents, cookies and care packages. From what I've seen, a reat many of hese folks have Internet access. Why not encourage them to make Amazon.com wishlists. It's gotten to the point now where Amazon has almost anything one could want and at the minimum it could allow soliders to catalogue what they need. Those sending them the gifts don't necessarily have to use Amazon.

Yet with the birth of our first son, Kirky and I have been discussing holiday traditions we'd like to start - one of them includes reaching out to the homeless. Whether it be surving a holiday meal in a soup kitchen or helping coordinate donations of clothes, blankets and food - we feel it's important to instill in our child how it could always be worse, to cherish the things he has...etc.

So here we are with this war raging overseas....yet we often overlook domestic problems and people who ned help in our own country.

Why not give this season to both?

I've gone ahead and registered the domain heroesandhomeless.org. Nothing is there yet but I hope something will be in the next few weeks. Here's my idea:

My dream is to have a Web site where anyone can register to get an account - those who want to give gifts and those who wish to receive. Givers would buy a gift or two for both someone in the US who is homeless and a soldier overseas in Iraq or some other part of the world. In addition to many of our soldiers having online access, I'm aware of a great many homeless folk who do as well. Those who do not can convey their wishlists to shelter workers or volunteers willing to enter them into Amazon.com and submit them to the site.

Those willing to give gifts register with their location and have the option of selecting a homeless person (or family) in a nearby shelter as well as a soldier who may be from their area. This would allow the person to deliver the gift to the people directly (i.e. the shelter or soldier's family). If not, they can be assigned a random person and choose to have their gift shipped.

So what do people think? I think it's a balanced way to perform acts of charity this holiday season - take care of our people at home as well as our fighting solders overseas.

Obviously the idea is rough and there are several questions that need answering as well as needs to be addressed:

• Does Amazon.com deliver to Military APOs?
• Are there there groups who coordinate such giving to soldiers and the homeless? I am aware of soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters and the like but what about actual delivering and the concept of a wishlist?
• Who has the connectivity to host such a Web site?
• Who can help program the backend or identify applications that could be combined to meet the requirements for this idea?
• How can we validate homeless applications? Should we just allow shelters to register?
• Should I tweak or modify certain points to be more practical?
• Are there any other consideratons I need to take into account?
• Any other ideas?

This is a work-in-progress. If enough people take interest, I will start an email list. Please think about the above questions and post them in the comments. But most of all - pass this link on to anyone you might know who would be interested. This includes technologists, philanthropists, social workers, homeless shelters, military support organizations and other charity groups. If you'd like to email regarding this project, send a note to info@heroesandhomeless.org.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

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