Giving Back

I know, I know — five posts in two days — but I guess it all got bottled up while I was taking a break from blogging to, you know, get married.  Maybe I should have done the NaBloPoMo challenge after all.  Anyway…

As I’m sure you all (hopefully) know from watching the news for the past few weeks, torrential downpours on October 31st and November 1st caused massive flooding in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco.  The flooding there is one of the most devastating natural disasters that Mexico has ever seen; think “Katrina” on larger scale, folks.

More than 70% of the entire state was affected by the flooding.  At one point, 80% of the entire state was underwater.  There are no official statistics yet concerning the number of affected victims, but the Red Cross and other agencies confirmed that there are more than one million people in urgent need of food, clean water, medicine and other basic necessities.

My company is doing an amazing thing to help out the flood victims: for every dollar that we, as employees, contribute, the company is matching 100% of our donation.  Even better, they are allowing the donations to come straight out of our paychecks and spreading the amount over three months, so that people are able to contribute even more than they might normally be able to.  $300 over six paychecks doesn’t seem quite so steep as $300 up front.  And it makes it even better knowing that your $300 is instantly doubled into $600.

While I know that not every company has the opportunity to be generous as mine, there are still lots of ways that you can help out the people of Tabasco.  The Red Cross is, as always, a very reliable source for information and agency to which you can donate.  They have a wonderful page here on how you can make a difference.  And if you habla español, here is another great site — the official homepage of the state of Tabasco — on how to help out or send donations.

The United States has sent $300,000 so far in assistance to the Mexican government.  And while I deeply understand that the U.S. and Mexico have a love-hate relationship, I hope that Americans can put the “hate” portion of that bond aside for now and see that our neighbors — some of the most desperately poor people in all of North America — need our help right now.

Okay, I’m off my soapbox.  But, seriously, give a little bit if you can.  Karma can be great thing.