I understand what you could possibly mean. I'm not usually one to show much compassion as others do about the homeless. Your blog just opened me up. We only look at things such as food and shelter when we think of homeless people. Not once, did I really consider how at risk these people are for disease and violence. But do we all want to give $5000 to homelessness? We're still attacking the situation slowly because homelessness is everywhere. In every city, state, and nation across the world. It won't cease. Could we possibly help as much as it is needed?

Jasmyne - yes, it's dispiriting to research a topic, learn how large a problem really is, and know you only have $5000 to throw at it. One idea I have is training non-profit staff how to write grant proposals. In that way $5000 becomes "seed money" that will allow the non-profit to get more money down the road. If $5000 trains 5 grant writers and those grant writers get grants for $100,000 - our $5000 investments goes a lot further. See what I mean? We won't address an immediate need, but the affects will last longer than spending $5000 on just food, books, etc. What I really want to do is for our effort to last beyond the initial grant money. I'd really like to leave a lasting legacy that will help a non-profit in the long term.

Boda: yea, I think that's a logical solution on where to place to money. I think it goes into conjunction with a suggestion another classmate made about starting up a program in a local high school to teach the students how to do so.