Will you help?

Asking people for money is never easy. But where it comes to cats’ well-being I have no scruples. So, once a year I ask everyone I know, and even some I don’t know, for a donation to the Toronto Cat Rescue Bowl-a-ton fundraiser. I’m not asking for much, $1, $2, whatever people want to give (although donations of $20 or more get a tax receipt). Now I can imagine that some people might think, “Why should I care, there are homeless cats in my neighborhood.” And you would be right, why should you care.” If you’re supporting a local cat shelter, I think that’s wonderful, homeless cats can use all the help they can get. But if you think about it, if you’re already donating to one cat shelter, why not one more? A little donation is not going to break the bank. I’m not selling tickets that cost $100, $50 or even $25 a piece, I’m asking for a donation you’re comfortable with, even if it’s only $1. If twenty people give $1, that makes $20 and those $20 pay for twenty cans or more of food. Let me tell you a bit more about the Toronto Cat Rescue. This cat shelter is not a regular shelter where cats sit in cages and are euthanized when nobody wants them. The shelter isn’t even a shelter as such, but a series of foster homes where cats and kittens end up, waiting to be adopted. Not that just anyone can adopt a cat. Adoptive parents are screened so the kitties go to a really loving home. In the meantime the cats and kittens who are housed at these foster homes need food and are spayed/neutered to prevent pregnancies and more homeless cats. All this costs money, and that’s where the donations come in. http://savecatsfromthegutter.com/about-tcr/ For twelve years the Toronto Cat Rescue has been raising funds for their kitties and personally I’ve been involved for ten years. In the beginning there were only about six teams and we raised only $3,000, but over the years the fundraiser has grown and now we’re aiming at raising $20,000. Several large organizations donate prices to the Bowl-a-ton and several individuals reward supporters with their own gifts. Personally I give everyone who donates the choice between one of these hand colored pictures. All the person has to do is contact me atconny.manero@gmail.com, specify the amount donated and tell me the picture of his/her preference, and it will be emailed to them. So what’d you think ... can you spare a dollar or two to support the kitties who need your help? It doesn’t matter if you’re not from Toronto, in the past, donations have been received from Dallas, New York, Last Vegas, Chicago, St. Louis, Sidney, Perth, Dublin, Zermat, Bonn, Lyon, Toulouse, and more. You can donate through my PayPal account atconny.manero@gmail.com or throughhttps://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/toronto-cat-rescue/bowlathon/team/grumpycats/ For inspiration, please view a few pictures from last year's event. 0 Comments Leave a Reply.

PMF Scam - Update

If you read yesterday’s post about the Princess Margaret Foundation scam, you might have come to the conclusion that I’m puzzled by the way they handle their money.

To get clarity, I wrote to them and ask them for an explanation.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I had a look at the sweepstakes and when I add all prizes together I come to about 10 million dollars.

Wouldn't it be better to invest that money into healthcare instead of all those items?

How can you afford all those houses, cars, vacations and electronics?

I'm looking forward to your answer,

Conny

This morning I found a reply …

Hello, Conny, and thank you for your note.

This is a long-standing debate. The problem is, without the prizing, especially the largest of the prizes, the lottery doesn’t hold the same cachet. It would be all but impossible to have people pay $100 (or any sizable amount of money) for a ticket without offering something very substantial in return. The homes, cars and trips provide dreams for ticket buyers, but these dreams fund essential cancer research work at The Princess Margaret in turn. And we need the lottery proceeds because they are the single largest source of funding, outside the government funding, that the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre receives. Since the first Princess Margaret lottery was presented in 1996, more than $227 million has been raised for cancer research programs at The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. We wouldn’t have had that source of revenue without the lotteries.

I hope you better understand why we hold the lotteries and why we offer such wonderful prizes.

Respectfully,

Kevin Shea

The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation

This fund raising still doesn’t make any sense to me.  Do people really need a reward to find a cure for cancer?  Isn’t healing (and subsequent living) enough?

The Cancer Society was founded in 1913 by 15 doctors and businessmen.  So they’ve been in operation for 99 years.  Although progress in the diagnosis and treatment of certain cancers has been made, cancer is still a dirty word that for a lot of people sounds like a death sentence.

In comparison, vaccines have been formulated for viral and bacterial diseases.  Nearly all these vaccines were formulated quite some time ago, without the use of computers and with limited funds.  So why is it, that with all our technology no more cures our found. 

One cure our brilliant scientists did find.  The cure for erectile dysfunction (Viagra) and it only took them 13 years. 

When can we expect a cure for cancer?  My guess is never. 

Imagine if you will that a cure was found.  No more donations for the Cancer Society, Princess Margaret Foundation and a list of other cancer related organizations.  No more cancer related doctors and nurses, no more machinery and oh dear, no more drugs.  That translates into a loss of not millions but of billions of dollars.

For the longest time I thought I was the only one being skeptical about the use of all those donations, but after talking to quite a few people, it turns out I am far from the only one.  All kinds of people are more than a little suspicious of cancer “research”.

In general they all agreed, cancer is not just an illness, it’s a business.

Are people really spending $100 on a ticket for the Princess Margaret Foundation?  They bitch and whine about the gas prices; they switch to LED lights to save electricity; they go to the store with coupons; they complain about unemployment after the recession; there’s all kinds of advice on frugal living.  In short … do you really see these people throw away $100 on a ticket that might or might not win?

And speaking of winning … where is last year’s list of winners?  Who won the houses and the cars?  Were they won?

The Princess Margaret Foundation Scam

It’s that time of the year again … the Princess Margaret Foundation is pulling the wool over your eyes.

The usual slogan is “Help Conquer Cancer” and they want you to contribute to their scam by buying a ticket.  To make the deal a little sweeter, they promise a series of prizes.  Million dollar homes, sports cars, vacations, etc.

Of course, the prizes are reserved for the already rich.  Think about it … who can afford to drive a $229,825 Ferrari or a Porsche 911 valued at 130,940?  Do you have any idea of the taxes and insurance on those cars?  

As for the homes, lets see:

A condo valued at $379,000

Oakville home: $4,300,000

Muskoka cottage: $1,200,000

In addition one can win seven vacations, ranging from $2,000  to $7,000

And there are the electronics:

3 – Apple MacBook Air Laptops
Valued at $1,132.09^††

10 – Sony Tablets
Valued at $451.99^††

95 – Apple TV Devices
Valued at $124.29^††

1,500 – Nikon Digital Cameras
Valued at $112.99^††

2,920 – Sony Noise-cancelling Headphones
Valued at $90.39^††

Above prizes supplied by Henry’s

3 – Samsung 55" LED 3D TVs
Valued at $3,135.74^††

25 – LG 32" LCD TVs
Valued at $593.24^††

25 – Toshiba 19" LED TVs
Valued at $261.02^††

120 – Hamilton Beach Juice Extractors
Valued at $112.99^††

699 – Sony iPod Docks
Valued at $103.33^††

4,000 – Sony DVD Players
Valued at $80.73^††

Above prizes supplied by The Brick

1 – Apple iMac Computer
Valued at $1,368.42^††

15 – Apple iPad 3 Devices
Valued at $588.38^††

15 – Samsung Galaxy Tablets
Valued at $396.28^††

25 – Bose SoundDock Series II Digital Music Systems
Valued at $284.13^††

40 – Monster Beats Solo Headphones by Dr. Dre
Valued at $226.10^††

25 – Microsoft XBOX 360 Gaming Systems
Valued at $225.99^††

25 – Sony eReader
Valued at $169.60^††

100 – Apple iPod nanos
Valued at $146.99^††

5,200 – Apple iPod shuffles
Valued at $56.60^††

Above prizes supplied by Future Shop

1,800 – Cash Prizes of $100 each

With a rough estimate, I get to about $10,000,000.

How exactly does that benefit the cancer patients?  How can the Princess Margaret Foundation afford to throw 10 million dollars out the window?  Just how many tickets do they have to sell to make a profit?

Wouldn’t it be better to invest that 10 million in healthcare?

I personally know a woman who approached the foundation for a headscarf.  Not a fancy wig, just a scarf.  They foundation sent her packing and none to friendly either.

Or is this whole sweepstakes a fraud?  Do people buy tickets without getting anything in return? Is this just another scam?

Can you afford to win?

The Princess Margaret Foundation is currently running a TV commercial to urge the public to make donations toward cancer research.  To motivate potential donators, the Princess Margaret Foundation gives away a few luxury prizes.  The commercial shows a $300,000 Ferrari, but this is just one of many they say.

Curious as to what else can be won, I went on The Princess Margaret website and had a look.  I found a $3,000,000 mansion, a $1,000,000 house and a few luxury condos.  Other than the $300,000 Ferrari there were a number of other cars. 

All in all the various prizes amounted to about $10,000,000!

Naturally, this got me thinking … how many tickets does the Princess Margaret Foundation have to sell to recover the ten million they spent on these prizes?  If they have ten million to spend on these items, why not put that money toward cancer research?   

Do we need mansions and sports cars to motivate us to donate?  What’s is wrong with offering a modest house, furniture, appliances and jewelry?

Think for a moment if you were to win the $3,000,000 mansion … would you be able to afford living in it?  Think of the taxes on such a property, the amount of money it would take to heat and cool such a living space, not to mention the furniture it would take to keep so many rooms liveable and the work it would take to keep them all clean.  You would need considerable staff to look after the house and the garden.

Not interested in a mansion but you fancy the Ferrari?  You might have a problem there too.  Not only will you pay a small fortune on taxes every year, but that baby guzzles up gas like a sponge.  Gas prizes being what they are, you better open your wallet, wide!  As for car insurance, open your wallet even wider.

So why buy a ticket if you cannot afford the prize?  To sell it and pocket the money?  How many buyers do you think you will find for a $3,000,000 mansion or a $300,000 car?  Most people have downsizing and living more frugally on their mind.

'Help conquer cancer' the Princess Margaret foundation says ... how, by wasting millions of dollars?  Visit their website and see for yourself and then decide ... is this a foundation you want to donate to?  I don't.
http://www.helpconquercancer.ca/welcomehome/earlybird.php

United Way = Organized Crime

United Way’s slogan is ... “Without you there would be no way” or “The Better Way”.  The better way for what ... swindling people out of their money?

Back in the day, Robin Hood took from the rich and gave to the poor.  He was a hero.

If an ordinary person takes money from another person, no matter how good his intentions, he’s a thief.

If you’re going to swindle millions of people out of millions of dollars you better be organized and come up with a great name.  A name such as United Way.

In their latest pamphlet United Way states that $50 per person, per month provides 24 newcomers to Canada with transportation.  What ... they came to Canada any money?  What were they planning on doing?  Land in Canada and go straight onto welfare?

United Way further states that giving $106 per person per month gives people in high need neighborhoods access to computers to look for jobs.  What’s wrong with buying a newspaper and sending a resume by fax?  Alternatively, they could go to the local unemployment office and use one of the many computers there. 

In the beginning I looked favorable upon United Way, thinking they helped people in need, but then one day I read testimonies of three people and that made me see United Way in a different light.

The first one was of a woman who thanked United Way for her son’s education.  She stated that her boy was very clever, but that she didn’t have the money to send him to university.  United Way had stepped in and taken care of that.
I was appalled.  The guy got to go to university on the donations of others!  Whether he was smart or not is beside the point.  There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of kids who are smart and never get the chance to go to university because their parents cannot afford it.  What’s wrong with attending a local college?

And if his mom could not afford university or even college, what is wrong with him getting a job?  Thousands of others are doing just that.

The second testimony was of a drug addict, who after years of going through life stoned out of his mind had decided enough was enough.  He was going to get clean.  Admirable, but why should donations of others have to pay for it?  If he had money for drugs, why didn’t he have money for rehab?   There are others who have an addiction and if and when they want to make a clean break, they have to do it alone.

Finally there was the testimony of a woman who thanked United Way for buying her daughter a pony.  The girl wanted one, the mother couldn’t buy her one, so United Way gave her one. 
Do you know how many girls want a pony?  Hundreds, thousands, a pony speaks to a child’s imagination.  I wanted a pony in my younger days.  I got a bike instead.

Other than these I have never actually heard of anyone receiving money from United Way.  I see homeless men and women; I see people in need; I hear about people having difficulties making ends meet; but never have I actually heard that anyone received a dime from United Way.

So where do the millions United Way collects go to?  Do you know?  I don’t.  Another one of United Way’s slogans is “United we can make a difference”.  This is true, united they can come up with believable lies, take your money and put it into their bank account.

Perhaps United Way should change their name to “Organized Crime”.  

 Think before you give.  Where does your money go to?