So, every time I see that yoplait is doing this "fundraising" thing with their lids, I participate. Today, as I was stuffing an envelope with 26 lids, I wondered if it really made any difference. When I was in NCCC, me and my team collected the lids. I dont remember how many we got then, but I remember doing it. For every lid sent back to them, they donate 10 cents to a research organization for cancer. It might just be breast cancer actually. I dont even know anymore. I see pink and all I think about is breast cancer. My mother died of breast cancer, but that doesnt even come to my mind. It goes from yogurt to pink top to breast cancer. Then I think about the fake ribbon magnets I see on cars. Then I wonder how much money that person in front of me gave to research. Then I wonder if they feel like they are doing their part, by buying a magnet and displaying it. They probably think that it is good that they are raising awareness. Maybe I have been reading too much Dennis Miller, but I am wondering if maybe we shouldnt all switch from "raising awareness" to actually "doing something". You should only be allowed to display a magnet if youre doing something. You can only wear a yellow wrist band because you let Lance Armstrong sleep in your bed while you slept on the couch, the night before he spoke in your hometown. You can only be a S.A.D.D. because you have no friends, because youre a crazed vigilante who pulls your peers out of their cars before they turn them on, beat the crap out of them for almost endangering others, and then you drive them home, safely. Your M.A.D.D. because you taught your kid how to do what I just said.
Raising awareness sure as hell isnt going to fix problems. Its going to get me to collect yogurt lids over a long time, eat yogurt i normally wont (so yoplait can make more money), and eventually mail them in, which forces yoplait to cough up a whopping $2.60 for the fight against breast cancer. What someone needs to do is tell me that they are going to whoop my tail unless i give some money to a good cause, or claim they are willing to give more than me so i can prove them wrong, or say that they bet I wont give as much as them...'cause I'll definitely step up to a challenge, and make us both poor in the process!
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I'm so doubtful about what really happens to money donated in these matters. Consider the myriad options for the talented, if wayward, accountant and consider what is really required of a project to affect a problem like Breast Cancer. Breast cancer is catchable (usually) with regular exams and so they are setting up exam centers? They are paying for research into alternatives to chemotherapy? I mean, even if they were, who are they putting in charge? What is their political agenda and how are they using those funds? Who is overseeing? Are they corrupt? There are so many variables that you would never know about. They say they are trying to help, but "help" can be a marketing scheme or it can be balm and boon. Who can say? Personally, I'm too paranoid to donate without doing what amounts to an audit.
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