Helping Others Help Themselves

I don't normally do blog carnival announcements. I'm not really organized enough to remember the deadlines, and most of the carnivals out there don't interest me all that much.

The first edition of a new one has just been posted, though, and it's definitely worth publicizing: "Help Us Help Ourselves" (or "HUHO," if you like acronyms). Lauren explains some of the rationale:

I don't need an economist to tell me what it's like to be poor, I don't have to read about it in a book that is more suited for a grad student than for me in my free time between jobs. I'm not stupid, I don't live in a petri dish. Nothing is more infuriating than the implication that poverty is related to moral purity. Poor and pure are not synonyms. I don't care if someone is student poor or welfare poor, you know the looks, you know the talk, you feel the burden of being burdensome on your family, on your friends, on the system. I've seen those looks, sat through those lectures, was told how much better off I would be if, when, and how. It never ceases to make a person feel small, this being talked at, being spoken for.

In other words, this project is selfish. I need help. But later, I thought, while this plea that would otherwise be considered blegging began to take shape, maybe other people could use the advice. And hey, maybe people who would otherwise consider themselves apart from this sort of daily worry could help too. Some of us need some help finding those bootstraps, hell, finding boots.

So here we are. These are ways to pinch a life that is already pinched, to beat the system, to get by when getting by is what you're doing already.

It's a big collection of links to things that benefit people without a great deal of disposable income-- kind of the anti-Gizmodo. If you need help finding ways to entertain children for less than $3, or cheap and healthy recipes, among other things, head over there. If you know somebody who needs that information, send them there. And if you have anything to contribute, send them a link.

(via Bill Hooker)