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Do teenagers care about charity?
December 22, 2008

Last week I wrote about giving to charity in lieu of presents for our teenage nieces and nephews. My husband was of the opinion that teenagers would not care about any charity causes. I had some hope.

Here is the early report, as the nieces and nephews all got their charity gifts early (darn that thank-you email from the receiving organizations).

My fifteen year-old nephew who spends a lot of time surfing and thinking about surfing thought that the membership to the Surfrider Foundation was the coolest thing. In fact he found out that the Foundation had a local chapter on the island where he caught most of his waves. The fact it was founded by eco-minded surfers is way cool, dude.

Our horse crazy niece, to whom we gave a donation to the National Horse Protection League, was happy for a day. But she was saddened after learning on the website that nearly 100,000 horses were slaughtered for meat or sold to foreign countries for meat every year. I regret the gift somewhat. Is it fair for a twelve year old to learn the dark side of the world? Will it depress her or motivate her to learn more and act?

For our other niece, who thinks nothing when charging $500 to her mom’s credit card but is passionate about music and performing art, we donated to her community school of music and art. On the phone she told me that this was one of the most surprising presents she had ever received. “very cool” was her exactly words. I don’t think it can compete with the over-the-top presents she will get from her parents. Hopefully she will remember this one.

Nature conservancy membership went to our nephew who will embark on an international exchange program to Costa Rica next year. He called to say thank you. When asked whether he had checked out what the organization did, he said no but commented that he was glad someone was doing the conservation work in Costa Rica. “Hey, there are people who give money and there are people who do the work. I am definitely the former,” he half-joked.

I was ticked off, “Kid, you’ve got no money. What you have is all your parents’. So don’t you act like you are already a billionaire and throw money at all the problems.” I wanted to tell him that he missed the point of our donation for him - a chance for him to learn the various eco-hotspots in the world and what this wonderful organization was doing to preserve the biodiversity for his generations and beyond. But it seemed sort of pointless, as he has already adopted his parents’ world view.

Do teenagers care about charity? I’d venture to say yes if it is directly speaks to what they care about. Who knows, perhaps they will renew their membership/donation to these organizations and actually learn and act. One can always hope.

Happy Holidays!

CindyW at Organicpicks

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