Charity Begins at Home

In my past life I was the secretary of a charity (which is still going) where no one was on the payroll, including me, so I have an impression (i.e. no research done!) that Australia and Australians are remarkably generous. Our government commits significant sums to international foreign aid, and as individuals we contribute generously to domestic charities.

We have a lot of charities in our country and the fact that they seem to continue to grow in number supports my impression.

I don’t need to souvenir ball point pens from hotels because I have a constant supply, some with my name on, given to me by charities seeking my valuable dollars. Presumably they have obtained my name and address from a mailing list broker or another arm of their organisation.

The requests for support keep our letter box filled but someone should check for duplication of addresses to avoid the reaction in a household, like ours, where two requests for help (Mr and Mrs) arrive on the same day.