Medal Project Discussion: What charity to donate to?

[Shallah]

While the details of what the medal is to look like are being discussed elsewhere we can also be discussing which charity people want to donate to :-) My two suggestions for discussion are The USFSA Memorial Fund (http://www.usfsa.org/programs/memorial_fund.htm) which helps skaters with skating expenses and also academic scholarships & The Children's Miracle Network (http://cmn.org/) which raises money for non-profit children's hospitals.

I know some people do not wish to take part in the medal project and would prefer to just donate to a charity. This is fine so here are direct links to pages that tell you how to donate to the above charities:

USFSA Memorial Fund's Donation Page (http://www.usfsa.org/programs/memfund/donate.htm)

Children's Miracle Network Donation page (http://cmn2001.org/donate.html)

[justsk8]

Thanks for starting this discussion Shallah- I was thinking we should but I didn't get around to starting a discusison yet.

Did the USFSA Memorial Fund ever help Michelle? If not, is there any FS fund that has helped her? This has no bearing on where we should donate, I'm just curious.

As for your two suggestions, Shallah, those were the main two that I was thinking of too. I like the idea of donating to the USFSA Memorial Fund because it's encouraging the sport we all love so much. And since Diane and MKGA always does CMN for Michelle's birthday, it might be nice to donate somewhere else for this project. But if we donate to CMN I would not be disappointed.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? :)

[Shallah]

but I do know that the Women's Sports Foundation gave her a travel and training grant once. I found an article on their website that mentions this:
www.womenssportsfoundatio...l?record=6 (http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/cgi-bin/iowa/about/media/press.html?record=6)
This is the same Foundation that gave Michelle the Sportswoman of the Year Award :-) Here is a list of past winners of that award including Michelle:
www.womenssportsfoundatio...l?record=6 (http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/cgi-bin/iowa/about/awards/results.html?record=6)

[FlashOBlue]

I would like to donate to the skater's memorial fund. Michelle's gift from us is about skating -- and if I can encourage one person to take one step toward a life like her's....

[Terri]

I found some charities besides CMN that Michelle has also been invloved with such as Camp Heartland and the Pediatric AIDS Foundation. So I'm adding them to the list for discussion. This is just my opinion, but I would most like to see the money go towards helping kids battling illness or such.

www.heatherw.com/mk/endorse/charity.htm (http://www.heatherw.com/mk/endorse/charity.htm)

[iloveskating]

I like the idea of the USFSA Memorial Fund. That is a great idea.

[Shallah]

I have no knowledge of Michelle supporting this charity but it certainly is a worthy one IMO:

Fight Famine in Afghanistan
www.oxygen.com/specials/f...11220.html (http://www.oxygen.com/specials/fightfamine_20011220.html)

Send a Chick to Afghanistan

We invite you to fight famine in Afghanistan. Oxygen and Heifer International { www.heifer.org/oxygen/index.cfm?P0201A1 (http://www.heifer.org/oxygen/index.cfm?P0201A1) } are making it easy for you to send chicks and other livestock to war-torn and drought-ravaged Afghanistan. Your donation can help make a difference for more than 12 million people, particularly the most innocent and vulnerable victims -- the children.

[probativev]

Can we have another vote choice: Let Michelle decide which charity to donate the money? We can ask her to pick a charity when we contact her about the medal ceremony.

Also, while we are doing this with good intention, we shouldn't donate to any organization that Michelle is not currently supporting, especially more politically charged one like something involving Afghanistan. There is a lot of PR stuff involved in these things and we don't want any undesirable accusations to be associated with Michelle. (BTW, this is way past First Ladies like Barbara Bush always supported neutral causes like literacy.) I think we should either have Michelle choose a charity, or give to something she supported, or something related to skating.

Alexa

[Shallah]

I just do not understand how helping starving people by giving them livestock to feed themselves could be politically charged.

[billob]

It should be simple enough to have the Charity selection on the ballot with the Medal artwork selection.

[probativev]

Hi Shallah,

I guess I'm just cynical because I lived in Washington DC for 5 years. Believe me, ANYTHING can become politically charged (my personal favorite political nonsense was the the idea of midnight basketball for teens a few years ago, which IMO is a perfectly harmless good cause that our wonderful government made into a politically charged issue, but that's another story).

Just for argument sake, I can think of several reasons why donating chicks to Afghanistan: it might offend donors who are vegetarians; if one day chicks donated by accident happened to be infected with diseases cause some illness outbreak to people receiving the chicks, someone may claim anything from intentionally bad motives by Americans to all sorts of conspiracy theories;if chicks being sent were accidentally left in inhumane conditions, which is highly probable considering the situation in Afghanistan (and later discovered by some Time or Newsweek reporter who wants to make a huge controversial story out of it), it may offend animal rights activists.

Anyway, I'm just playing devil's advocate. I personally have nothing against this particular charitable cause. I'm just saying that one can never know the bad PR that a celebrity may get for supporting certain causes, and if we are donating in Michelle or anyone else's name, it might be better off (and also simple common courtesy) to make sure that that person agrees to the charity being supported. And if the donation is to something she currently supports, or relates specifically to skating, then we won't have to worry as much about potential PR liabilities.

Alexa

[Forever Loyal]

I believe that we should let Michelle decide the charity. After all we are presenting this medal to her. Michelle should make the decision. It should be her choice.

[barbnf]

say Michelle should choose ... it is $$$$ we all donated to honor HER ... no specific charity ... HER choice, is my choice ...

All those who want to consider this option on a perpetual basis, please, e-mail me at barbnf@yahoo.com ... some of us want to honor Michelle on an ongoing basis ... I have decided to take that idea off this Forum because of its less than enthusiastic reaction here ... but, I know there are many interested and we will soon get this going ... but, it will be a LOT of work (well, nothing in comparison to Michelle's hard work over the years) ... hey, Michelle has worked very hard for a very long time, so what little "elbow grease" we each can contribute will only be a small token of our appreciation for all she has done for us ... I, for one, will do all I can to help make this a reality ... I would surmise that NO other skater has had such an honor bestowed on them by fans like she has ... so ... join me ... if you care to ...

[FlashOBlue]

I like the idea of letting Michelle choose the charity. What a great idea! The charity closest to her heart may not be the one we would choose in her name.

[Kwanfan25]

I think letting michelle kwan donate the money to her choice of charity is a good idea. I also know that michelle kwan is doing charity for the Make a wish foundation. Theres a t-shirt that michelle kwan designed herself on ebay right now. Gives everyone something to think about. :0)

[Charmed One]

I posted this over in MK Fan Chat, but someone suggested
I post it here. My idea was: Since Michelle skated to Fields of Gold and the girl who sang it (Eva Cassidy) had passed away from breast cancer (I think), I thought we could donate some
of the money to a research foundation for it. And the rest we could give to the USFSA Memorial Fund.




http://www.frogsonice.com/skateweb/pictures/clipart/minnie02.gif

[Shallah]

I understand what you are saying now. I forgot to never underestimate the power of stupidity. I am fine with people not choosing that charity. I just wanted to throw it in for consideration and I am fine with it being tossed out :-)

My vote is for Michelle to chose the charity if at all possible with a back up plan for those donating to the project to vote for the charity.

Eva Cassidy died of melanoma skin cancer as you can see in this USA Today article here: www.usatoday.com/life/mus...assidy.htm (http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/2001-08-24-eva-cassidy.htm)

[Raeshondaaa]

I never usually post but I wanted to comment on this.

I think we should let Michelle choose the charity. This may give her the opportunity to donate to a charity that she does not have the time to give like she does for Children's Miracle Network and the other charities. This money was collected in honor of her so we should let her make the decision.

Frankly I would vote for a local organization in her area that does not generate the type of publicity that the other larger charities generate. This money would give her the opportunity to give something (computers, books, skates, etc...) to a group but it would be her decision.

[zins]

ITA, Michelle should choose. after all it will be in her name so it should be an orginization she wants to support.

[billob]

Yes. Since this is a gift from us to Michelle, IMO the choice(s) should be hers.

[GinnySmith]

Ditto. Let Michelle decide.

[Sharon]

I haven't been posting much lately, but I say ditto too - let Michelle choose :) !

[FlashOBlue]

I've started a poll that includes the suggestions on this and other threads. The time to vote is now!