Best volunteer efforts are those performed from home

This is an important analysis. Charity should be one-to-one, not big business. There are good charitable organizations, where the money goes to really help those it was intended for. But she's right about most charities, who live high on the hog from money raised by volunteers and free ads. After a while the business becomes more important than the charity.

Remember when the March of Dimes was about polio? It was dramatically successful. But instead of declaring victory and disbanding, it searched around for another cause that wouldn't be so easy to achieve. Now it's about birth defects, which are caused by so many different things that they will probably always be with us, as will the March of Dimes.

You want to eliminate homelessness? Bring them home with you. Feed them and give them a bed. Help them find work and get back on their feet. Of course, nobody wants mentally ill people, or people who are dirty and stink of beer, wine, cigarettes, urine and feces in her nice clean home. And how many of the "homeless" are willing to accept such an offer when it comes with the requirement of cleaning up, giving up their alcohol and tobacco, when they can get by on handouts?

I often think about the parable of the good samaritan. The good man in the parable was from a people looked down upon by Jewish society. The priest and the Levite who passed by were the elites. They didn't want to dirty themselves helping a robbery victim. Doing so would require them to undergo a process of purification before they could officiate in the temple again.

I suppose that in a modern version, the priest could just pull out his cellphone and call the police or the local social services or the Red Cross. But the point would still be the same. Which of these three, the priest, the Levite or the Samaritan, would be that poor man's neighbor?