What is your foundation?

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During the giving season, more request than normal present themselves to us with pictures of children and puppies and tugging at our emotions to part with some of our hard earned funds.

And there is a new good meaning organization or charity or foundation of special fund set up every minute to provide comfort to those less fortunate than us.

When you give to one, the others come knocking, under a network of good will to all.

Some of us set aside a certain percentage for charitable donations to the groups that have touched us personally, like cancer or heart or animal rescue, but even those have been fractured into subgroups specializing in weekend yard sales, concerts, 10k races, clothing, books, and even celebrity endorsements.

If someone is making good money, you know, the 1%, then they will form a foundation to feed the hungry, or teach the dumb, or offer financial assistance to the poor. A foundation or organization with names like “Human Response” or “Caregivers International” or “Love For All” pop up on every corner giving good sound bites to afternoon television and giving dozens of telemarketers something to do. And since they are non-profit, they are a tax deduction.

So while you are writing all those checks to save the water or education the world on the dangers of global warming or help some child in a far off land living in squalor get a new pair of used shoes, feel good in your righteousness knowing full well your pennies are making a difference.

Yet there are still poor and hungry and damaged because all the good will cannot overcome all the bad our species can inflict on each other.