It's time once again for the annual RESULTS breakfast to raise money and consciousness to combat world hunger. It will be held at the Arizona Inn at 7:30 am on November 8th. If you'd like to get involved, call Lois Stevens at 628-7647 or Mary Guinger at 622-2042.This group is one of the finest charitable organizations I have yet encountered. RESULTS works to empower impoverished women in the Third World by giving them access to microcredit loans, allowing them become self-employed. RESULTS has also played a leading role in combatting easily-prevented diseases, which claim the lives of 13 million children every year. And they do this work, for the most part, by working with existing institutions like the US Congress and the World Bank, not always noted for their good works on behalf of the impoverished.
A reader took me to task last year when I mentioned all of this, as I do every year about this time. He took particular exception to my musing that since capitalism is destroying the world, perhaps only capitalism can save it. It seems to me that one of the major problems with capitalism is that most folks ain't got any capital. Results turns that around, by injecting funds right into local economies. This is completely different from most Western aid organizations, which bring in massive amounts of food aid and consequently put local farmers out of business. RESULTS is all about helping folks become self-sufficiency, they way many of them were before colonialism disrupted their economies.
My correspondent objected to a $100 a plate breakfast (which you can pay off in monthly installments), as "stupid, let's pretend we care...lip service." But one of the key factors in the success of RESULTS is that for every dollar you donate, their lobbying efforts leverage into 100 more. So if you genuinely do care, you couldn't find a better way to contribute your charitable resources.
PS: Congress votes on Fast Track this month. Call'em up and ask for a slower track, please.