Is $40 enough?
 

This was inspired by other threads in this forum.

I'm a middle wage kind of guy, give occasionally to charity, like to buy gadgety for myself stuff once every few months. Always provide for my family. We don't have a big bank account but are just now starting to save some. When 9/11 happened I took what was in my paypal ($40)account and sent it to the official fund.

Is this enough, what did you give? Was my money wasted, seems most "survivors" became millionaires and that was certainly not my intention when giving $40. I wanted to make sure the people in need had funds as soon as possible for their benefit.

I feel guilty and screwed at the same time. Could I have affordded more than $40? Certainaly I could have, did I owe it to them? We have more than a few billionaires in the country, is there gift equivalent to mine, percentage wise I mean?

Weigh in, I gotta go, my wife is yapping at me.

i think your $40 was generous. i didn't send anything because i wasn't aware of where to send it...but if i had sent $40 i would feel like i did enough.

I really don't understand why the families of the people that died in the WTC are more deserving than the guy that gets run down by a drunk driver.
Or the family of the NYC fireman that died on 9-11-01 is more deserving than the family of the fireman that died trying to save 2 children in NJ, a month ago.
I understand that the flood of donations came from angry, scared, bewildered, compasionate people that wanted to do something...anything. Unfortunately the fund was mismanaged, misrepresented and misdirected, buts that's not unusual for the Red Cross.

I decided to give to the Salvation Army which set up a fund. Unlike the Red Cross, however, they did not pass it through to the next of kin but rendered whatever services they felt appropriate and hung onto the rest for their general work. The Salvation Army, I believe, has the lowest admin cost of the major charities - more of each dollar reaches the needy than for anyone else.

I remember seeing the corp donations flood into the Red Cross and thinking what's my pittance going to amount to in light of that?

And $40.00 is more than generous. If everyone gave $40... well, you get the picture.