But today the expression "charity begins at home" has never been plainer.
Your own school is, in some respects, a charity situation, requiring regular donations every year, plus whatever they can pull in from the year's "big event", usually a gala.
If you're lucky in your community, you raise enough to pay a teacher's salary. If your community is struggling, you raise enough to paint the toilet blocks.
I'm not in a position to judge whose lives are more valuable than anyone else's.
In the end, charitable efforts are very much like a story.
They have to have a catchy angle, something interesting, something you can hang the story on.
Marketing, promotion and publicity play a big part with more remote charitable efforts, because we're not affected personally.
We've just had the biennial Relay for Life, and that money is staying here in Wairarapa. The big angle for Relay is so many of us are affected in some way by cancer, plus there's a competitive side to it.
This weekend, Chanel College students are running their own relay, to raise money for the Philippines. The spirit of endurance, like the 40-hour-famine, is a good hook for participants.
Perhaps there shouldn't be a "why should I" when it comes to fundraising, but it is a sad fact that those who are the most affected are usually those who are unable to directly change their circumstances. It is up to those who could get by just fine without even knowing where the Philippines are, to get motivated. Images of suffering and consequences help to stir people, but entertainment and fun works as well.
