?? Help children in the USA for the holidays and......

Check out feedthechildren dot org

It's a $32 monthly commitment that helps less fortunate children right here in the USA.

charitynavigator.org gives info on most charitable organizations. Great place to start.

Contact your local schools, radio, or TV stations to ask about local charities. My city has a "We Live Here, We Give Here" campaign and an annual event to raise as much as possible in 24-hours for local charities. The local NPR station has a "We Live Here, We Give Here" page and does a feature highlighting a different local charity each month.

Some of the charities I've seen highlighted on local TV and radio include:

- A Junior League group who provides bags full of meals and snacks for kids every Friday for a school where 96% of the kids would go hungry on weekends

- A group that provides mentors for children with incarcerated parents

- An organization that works with girls who want to get involved in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) activities

And yes, as Henderson said, check CharityNavigator.org to see how your charity rates in terms of money going towards overhead Vs money going to the cause, etc.

In an area near me they call it 'Christmas for Kids' the group does public activities that draw people and those people either give money or they bring an unwrapped gift. The organization starts its campaign in a few weeks and goes until about 2 weeks before Christmas. Every year they raise many, many thousands of dollars.

It is a huge effort....and give less fortunate children in the area a Christmas.

I've heard the Salvation Army is a charity that spends much of their donations on charity rather than themselves. I'm not sure what they do for children specifically.

Many churches help children with food, etc. and gifts at Christmastime.

My computer's all messed up so I'll post quick hope I'll be back later.

Thanks for the great ideas everybody!! !!!