A Million Dollars to Give Back

If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?

If I had a million dollars to give away the first needy cause I would give it to is my mum. She is over 80 years old but does not have the finances to take care of her home and her belongings,things break and they stay broken. Right now she does not have heating and water,so I would give her just over a tenth of the money to find her a small new place to live that she could not wreck and would be safe in.

The rest of the money I would divide between deserving causes. I do not have one specific charity that I support, in the past I have always favoured animal charities from the PDSA to Born Free Foundation, a UK based donkey sanctuary and I have had several zoo memberships over the years which help to pay towards the upkeep of the animals.

I already donate bags of clothes and unwanted household items to charities such as Help the aged, The Salvation Army, and The British Heart Foundation a couple of times a year.
I have also previously competed in half marathons to raise funds for cancer charities, such as lymphoma and Lukemia, lung cancer, breast cancer, and Dementia. Therefore, all of the aforementioned charities have already benefited from my contributions so far.

I suppose really I would look for community projects locally, which I believed in,and who would benefit from a cash injection that would benefit either children or older people. I would donate money to youth football teams that needed it. Art and music projects for underprivileged kids would also be beneficiaries. I would happily donate money for older people to be able to take advantage of more activities and to purchase equipment for recreational activities.
I wouldn’t just want to hand-out money willy nilly to projects, though I would like to set something up for the benefit of others, like a community centre or safe space area for kids with problems. I would like to buy a disused building and fill it full of beds and showers for the homeless so that no one in my city would have to sleep rough on the streets.

I would also like to create my own version of a soup kitchen, where people who can’t afford to eat could come and eat for free,so long as they gave their time to help in some way, cook wash dishes, serve food or clean up, so that they felt like valued members of society,not just poor people looking for hand outs.

My million dollars would not last very long,but so long as it brought joy,and provided those that need it some basic essentials. Whether it changed one life or many lives, forever, or just for a while, it would have definitely been money well spent.

Thanks for reading.

Caz