If you love animals, consider giving to a pet or animal charity this holiday season. In your community alone, there are various organizations who need your help. If you live in the UK, a good place to start looking is at Pet Charities website. This comprehensive site has listings of most animal charities in the UK, with contact details.

Here are some ideas that will give brighten up a pet’s life:

1. Animal Rescues and Shelters

These places are always in need of food, blankets, medicine, toys and other supplies. Visit or call your local one and ask what necessities they need most. Also consider putting your time to volunteer, act as a foster home, or better yet, adopt a pet yourself.

2. Animal Welfare Groups

Large organizations like the RSPCA (Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), The American Humane Society or the ASPCA are great places to start off finding ways you can help. Their websites are incredibly comprehensive and organized, and have a lot of facts and information and well as the latest news, programs and interesting stories.

You can even get your children involved by taking them to these sites and asing them how they would like to help. If finding a new family pet is in the picture, take your child to the American Humane Society’s website where they’ll find Clifford The Big Red Dog’s Adopt a Dog Month.

Older kids can also give part of their allowance each month, or raise funds through selling their old toys, clothes or even having an old fashioned lemonade stand in the yard.
Through their sites, you can create direct debit accounts to give monthly donations, or even shop in their store for some great products which go to a worthy cause.

In the RSPCA shop site for instance, the Holiday Collection is out and worth a look. Here’ll you’ll find a wonderful one-stop-shop for a lot of your holiday needs. Fantastic Christmas cards with adorable illustrations of animals, wrapping paper, card holders, advent calendars, Christmas crackers, chocolate, even decorations for the home and much, much more.

There is also a massive selection of toys and personalised gifts for everyone in the family including pets of course!), as well as many other lovely home, garden and leisure items.

Technorati Tags: pets, animal cruelty, christmas, holidays, animal welfare, aspca, rspca

Categories: Animals, Campaigns, Charities, Ideas, Organizations, Shopping, Tips, Websites | Tags: animal-cruelty, animal-welfare, aspca, christmas, Holidays, pets, rspca

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Barnardos, the UK’s leading charity for children is adding a new store to its group pf charity shops, only this time it has a much more glamorous edge.

The first central London shop of Barnardos, and certainly the first charity shop of its kind, the shop will be selling items chosen by the UK’s top celebrities both new and used (by the celeb, of course) as well as designer products.

Gerard Cousins, head of retail at Barnardo’s commented:

“This is our first central London shop and we are incredibly excited about the interest it has already generated. We intend to have a constant stream of both celebrity and designer items up for sale. It will be a hotspot for any discerning shopper.”

The shop, located in George Street, Marylebone, will open its doors on November 15th, following a celebrity-studded launch event. Stars such as Jonathan Ross, Dame Helen Mirren, Melinda Messenger, Kate Winslet and Laura Bailey are among the stars donating their most treaured items to be sold at the shop.

Jonathan Ross, pictured above, and whose suit is to be sold at the launch gushed:

“I am delighted and slightly intrigued to discover who will buy my suit. But whoever buys it will be helping a worthwhile cause which is what it’s all about. I intend to pop into the shop myself as I hear there are some Bassey numbers up for grabs!”

Technorati Tags: Charity shop, childrens charity, Barnardos, celebrity event, Jonathan Ross

Categories: Charities, Children, Events, News, Shopping | Tags: Barnardos, celebrity-event, Charity-shop, childrens-charity, Jonathan-Ross

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Just a couple of posts ago, when talking about how we can give to pet charities this upcoming holiday season, I mentioned the RSPCA, The Royal Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals .

The UK charity has been working tirelessly and passionately to promote kindness and prevent cruelty to animals since 1824. It was the first society for the protection of animals in the world, spearheaded by MP Richard Martin, known as “Humanity Dick”. By 1840, the society’s work was held in such high regard that Queen Victoria gave permission to use the word “Royal” to its title.

Well, the RSPCA is now looking for volunteers who will be filling three key roles in the organization. The jobs will be for the Peterborough and District Branch.

The first position involves someone who will help with welfare assistance three times a week every afternoon. The role involves talking to the public, liaising with vets and doing basic administration work.

The second vacancy is for a rehoming co-ordinator for someone with 15 to 20 hours to spare each week.

The branch is also looking for someone to oversee the collection box operation.

Branch manager Diana Robinson said:

“Volunteers are vital to our success. However, we need to fill these positions as soon as possible.”

If you can help, call 01733 248116, or e-mail rspca. peterborough@tiscali.co.uk

Technorati Tags: Animal charity, RSPCA, Peterborough, Volunteer jobs, job vacancy

Categories: Animals, Charities, Jobs | Tags: Animal-charity, job-vacancy, Peterborough, rspca, Volunteer-jobs

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Heres a good story from the news about how a thief stole from a charity and felt guilty, later returning the money, and adding four times the amount he stole!

In Tewkesbury, Glos (UK), a young woman was collecting money at snooker club to raise funds for breast cancer. Maranda Shepherd, 22, claimed that she left the donation box at the bar of the club, only to find it stolen some time later.

“I was gutted someone had stolen it - £40 is a lot of money for someone who hasn’t got it. It was upsetting because it wasn’t my money and I couldn’t replace it.” said Maranda Shepherd, who was raising funds for Breast Cancer in honor of her grandmother who had died of the disease.

After reporting it to the police the following day, Ms.Shepherd got a surprising call from the manager of the snooker club, saing that the thief had returned the box and wanted to speak to her.

“I was very pleased, but very surprised, to discover the man was giving the money back, and increasing the amount. He apologised profusely and obviously felt bad about taking charity money. He gave me £200 in total - which was a very generous donation.

I was very happy he brought the money back because it meant I could give a lot more money to the charity than I had originally expected.”

Ms.Shepherd has since decided not to press charges.

Technorati Tags: charity fndraiser, charity news, charity theft, breast cancer fundraiser

Categories: Fundraising, News | Tags: breast-cancer-fundraiser, charity-fndraiser, charity-news, charity-theft

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In the UK, a new way to give to charity has been buzzing in the headlines, giving dangerously, that is.

We’re talking about “The Charity Challenge“, which is like a travel/tour operator with a unique twist - it gives people the chance to have a large-scale adventure holiday and at the same time, organizes it so that your holiday raises money for charity. Think of climbing Mount Everest or following an Inca trail in deepest Peru - terribly exciting and death-defying stuff, and you get to help others too along the way.

Actually, the unusual concept has been around for the past 15 years, established in 1991 by Erich Reich, who used to be a Director at Thomas Cook. He first got the idea when he was asked by a friend to help raise funds for a Children’s Home in London. Reich rode for 400 kilometers in the Middle Easters desert and was inspired ever since.

His company, Classic Tours, has been booming ever since and leads as the world’s largest “Challenge Operator”. Just this year, the company will be taking over 3,000 participants on high-adrenalin challenges all over the world - from Brazil to Mongolia.

“Since 1991 we have helped approximately 120 charities raise something in the order of £32m, and that’s net, not gross.” Reich explains.

So how does it work?

Reich explains further:

“We then organise everything, from flights and accommodation to logistical support on the ground. On charity bike rides, for example, we have our own teams of mechanics. In the developing world, we even supply our own medics.

The nature of the challenge is very individual, some people have never camped before so for them it can be a challenge just to go to the loo behind a rock.”

Even though we’re a tour operator, no money comes directly to us from clients. We give the charity a cost per individual for the services on the ground and they pay us in turn,” says Reich.

Technorati Tags: charity challenge, charity event, charity tour, charity travel, charity trek

Categories: Campaigns, Charities, Fundraising, Holidays, Ideas | Tags: charity-challenge, charity-event, charity-tour, charity-travel, charity-trek

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