"charity" news and stories

We may think our food pantries are in short supply, but residents of Queensland, Australia, are under tsunami recovery. Thousands were forced to evacuate their homes, nine are said to be missing, and there have been 35 flood-related deaths since November 30, 2010, reports the Herald Sun. But there's a way to give back, by buying music.

Rock legend and former Police frontman Sting has joined a list of musicians on a charity album, Flood Relief - Artists For The Flood Appeal. Other artists include Pink, Kings of Leon, Beyoncé, Foo Fighters, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and John Mayer, who each donated a track to the three-disc album released yesterday by Sony. Sting is also currently touring in the country and is asking fans to donate money at his concerts.

"It would be difficult to come here and not deal with that," he told the Sydney Morning Herald. "We're asking people to make donations at the shows for the Salvation Army and the Red Cross and the Premier's Appeal."

According to a USDA report, 15 percent of American households "struggled to put food on the table during 2009," reports the Turlock Journal, while it seems food drive donations are down this year -- maybe because too many givers are now indeed in need themselves. But the food drives we've come across are certainly not short on creativity. Below, we've rounded up six of some of the more out-of-box ways people are giving this year, including an effort from our own parent site -- not to mention our guy in the box this Halloween.

Delivery by Motocycle
On Monday, twenty motorcycles from the Desert Thunder Motorcycle Riders club rode into California's Coachella Valley Rescue Mission with four trucks bearing 125 turkeys and more than 4,000 pounds of corn, sweet potatoes, pies and other holiday table essentials, reports The Desert Sun, a local paper of Palm Springs, CA.

Touchdown from the Redskins
This Tuesday, for the eighth year, several players from the NFL team joined Tanya Snyder, wife of Daniel M. Snyder (who owns the Redskins), to package and distribute 3,500 turkeys and food baskets at Washington's FedEx Field for Prince George County residents, reports the Washington Post. Not a bad roster to get your packing done.

America's favorite "Anchorman" has followed in the charitable footsteps of Snoop Doog (Snoop's Youth Football League), Jennifer Hudson (Boys & Girls Clubs of America), and several other celebs in joining with 7-Eleven to design a "Cup With a Cause." From today through January 3, when you grab some 7-Eleven joe in a cup featuring the snowman Will Ferrell created, you help support Ferrell's charity of choice, Cancer for College. 7-Eleven has guaranteed that at least a quarter-million dollars will go to Cancer for College (which provides scholarships for cancer survivors), and even more may be donated if the snowman cup gets hot.

Who knew Will Ferrell could not only skate ("Blades of Glory") but he's pretty savvy with a crayon? "Yes," Ferrell said. "I drew the snowman myself."

In Toronto's Union Station this week, there are people living in glass houses but they are decidedly not throwing stones. OK, it's not "people," it's one magician, and he's living in a glass box as part of a Halloween food drive.

As reported by The Toronto Star this morning, 25-year-old magician and social activist Scott Hammell is living in a glass box until 6 p.m. this Halloween in hopes passersby will stock his little 12-by-6-by-8-foot transparent digs with nonperishable goods for the Free the Children social justice charity, for which he works.

Grinning behind his plate-glass window, pumping away at his Twitter and Facebook accounts in his "Think We" T-shirt, Hammell tells the Star, he hopes people will make him "disappear" by filling the house's two-can-width glass enclosure. Sounds like an impending life-size Warhol to us, and one with admiral merit, to boot. We wonder how anyone could say no to this goofy guy (and fully support a national tour, by the way).

Cotton in the Mississippi Delta. Photo: Natalie Maynor, Flickr

A national organization devoted to combating hunger has found a way to wring good works from the South's most notorious prison farms.

The Mississippi office of the Society of St. Andrew, which identifies itself as "America's premier food salvage ministry," last month joined with the Mississippi Food Network to start collecting surplus produce from the Mississippi State Penitentiary -- commonly known as Parchman Farm -- and distributing it to 350 food pantries across the state.

"It's a win-win situation," program coordinator Jackie Usey reports. The program has already collected 40,000 pounds of squash from Parchman's fields.