Zelempa's Second Semi-Annual Charity Stuff Drive
Last spring, in an effort to downsize before moving, I offered my books and dvds in exchange for charity donations and raised about $200 for various organizations including Doctors Without Borders and Kiva. As the holiday season approaches, and we are all thinking about charity and also giving each other stuff, I thought it might be fun to do a second round. Below, find a list of the items I'm offering and the suggested donation for each one. All you need to do is comment or email zelempa at gmail dot com claiming the item you want; once I confirm your claim, make a donation, and I'll mail you the item.
DVD TV/Collections
Alias seasons 1, 2, and 3 (together or separately) in super-slim one-dvd-movie-sized packaging. Suggested donation: $25 a season to Oxfam because I have to get them in somehow.
Boy Meets World seasons 2 and 3 (together or separately), watched once or twice with usual minor corner wear to edges of cardboard casing. Suggested donation: $25 a season to Donors Choose to help fund a classroom project such as the time Mr. Turner got them to all make videos.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 1, new in shrink wrap. Suggested donation: $25 or a pint of blood to American Red Cross
Degrassi: The Next Generation seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 (together, separately, or in any combination). All watched once. Suggested donation: $25 per set to Sick Kids Hospital to help Toronto kids with medical issues, like SOME OF THE MAJOR CHARACTERS IN THIS SHOW
Due South seasons 3 and 4 (one item), aka the complete RayK collection. Don't worry, I still love these, I just bought the complete series collection so these are redundant. Suggested donation: $25 to Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society to help conserve Arctic wildlife or Chicago Coalition for the Homeless so nobody has to live at the Canadian Consulate.
Longitude, new in shrink wrap. Suggested donation: $25 to VFW, although strictly speaking Jeremy Irons was not a veteran of a foreign war in this, was he?
Middlemarch, BBC series from 1993. Suggested donation: $15 to Doctors Without Borders in honor of Dr. Lydgate's dreams.
The Guild seasons 1 and 2 DVD (it's like 2 hours long total; does this still count as a collection?) Suggested donation: $10 to Organization for Transformative Works to support the cause of entertainment for us, by us, damn the man!
Horatio Hornblower with Ioan Gruffudd, complete set (8 feature length movies in slimline cases/slipcase). Watched once. Suggested donation: $35 to Oceana to help conserve the world's oceans
The Sentinel Season 1, new in shrink wrap. I bought this to throw money at the creators and cast my vote for future seasons on DVD (a pipe dream, sigh), but I really only watch my ripped video files. Suggested donation: $25 to Amazon Conservation Team to help conserve Peruvian rainforests and the way of life of the indigenous peoples who live there.
Stargate Atlantis: Season 1, watched a few times, slipcase in terrible condition (I bought it used and it has a lot of sticker residue. Really obviously a used copy.) But it plays perfectly well and the individual DVDs and slimline cases look good. Suggested donation: $15 to Servicemembers United to help their efforts to get DADT repealed for reals this time.
Stargate Atlantis: Season 2, new in shrink wrap. What can I say, I don't watch shows on DVD. Suggested donation: $20 to charity:water to provide 20 years of well water to people who don't have fresh drinking water... unlike the people in Atlantis, who presumably had plenty? (Okay, it's kind of weak, but charity: water is one of my favorite organizations!)
Star Trek: The Next Generation seasons 4, 5, 6, 7 (together or separately). Watched a couple of times each, cardboard cases have normal minor shelf wear. All DVDs played well last time I checked. Suggested donation: $25 Kiva microloan for each season. (If you do make a Kiva loan for any of these items, I'd love it if you counted it toward the Fandom team. Or, you can issue a $25 gift certificate to zelempa at gmail dot com and I will count it toward the Fandom team.) Why is Kiva for Star Trek? I had some justification about equality of resources and the kind of Earth utopia Star Trek imagines, but really, I just couldn't find anywhere else to put it.
Xena: Warrior Princess Season 2, watched once or twice with usual minor corner wear to edges of cardboard casing. Season includes my favorite episode, "The Return of Callisto," as well as the infamous moment where Autolycus kisses Gabrielle passionately while possessed by Xena (which is I believe is the first canon Xena/Gabby kiss). Suggested donation: $25 to Doctors Without Borders because Xena invented CPR?
The X-Files seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (together or separately). 4 and 5 are new in shrink wrap. All in bilingual Canadian packaging. Suggested donation: $25 per season to American Lung Association in memory of the cigarette smoking man.
DVD Movies
All prewatched but in clean original packaging.
Captain Blood with Errol Flynn. Suggested donation: $15 to blood:water mission which has a dual mission to provide AIDS relief and fresh drinking water in Africa.
Compulsion, slightly fictionalized story of Leopold and Loeb, with Orson Welles as Clarence Darrow. Suggested donation: $15 to Books Through Bars to provide books and education to prisoners (apparently Nathan Leopold taught at the prison school during his incarceration).
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, new in shrink wrap. Suggested donation: $10 to Organization for Transformative Works to support the cause of entertainment for us, by us, damn the man!
Foreign Correspondent, Hitchcock movie with Joel McCrea. Suggested donation: $15 to Public Radio International.
Inherit the Wind, slightly fictionalized story of the Scopes Monkey Trial with Spencer Tracy as Clarence Darrow. Suggested donation: $15 to a Donors Choose science project.
Prisoner of Zenda, double feature with both the original 1937 movie with Ronald Colman (great) and the 1952 remake with Stewart Granger (terrible). Suggested donation: $15 to Amnesty International to help free political prisoners.
Some Like It Hot classic crossdressing romp with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Surprisingly nonoffensive! Suggested donation: $15 to National Defense Resources Council to fight global warming because some do not like it hot.
Star Trek 2009 reboot. Suggested donation: $15 donation to Kiva operating costs.
Strangers on a Train, Hitchcock movie with Farley Granger. Supposedly the gayest Hitchcock movie although I think Rope is much gayer. Suggested donation: $15 to National Association of Railroad Passengers with their dreamy and impossible goal of making rail a viable means of transit in USA.
Wet Hot American Summer Incredibly surreal and funny summer camp comedy with the Stella guys, Janeane Garofalo, H. John Benjamin, and the brother from Frasier. Suggested donation: $15 to Hole in the Wall Camps to fund camps for children with serious illnesses.
Wilde Stephen Fry as Oscar Wilde. Suggested donation: $15 to Lambda Legal because if they had been around then maybe things would have ended better for Oscar.
More details: Q&A
Can you ship outside the U.S.?
Yes, generally, I will agree to this if you make a slightly larger donation to reflect the difference in shipping costs. Claim your item so no one else snags it, then email me and we can discuss the details. ETA: These are all region 1 DVDs, make sure your DVD player can handle that!
Can I claim more than one thing?
Absolutely. Then I can combine shipping.
Must I make the suggested donation?
No. You can donate to any charity you like, although it should be an approved 501(c) organization or registered charity in your country. (Most of the suggested charities on this list are American, although some are Canadian. To save on bank fees, donate to an organization that accepts your currency.) You can also donate in any amount you like. Don't think my stuff is worth that much? That's fair. Want to give more? Even better.
I donate to charity all the time. Can I just tell you how much I gave this month and claim that amount worth of stuff?
For this, my hope is that you will make a donation in addition to whatever you normally give. It can be to the same organization(s) if you like, but add whatever you would be willing to spend on the item(s) you've claimed to your normal amount.
But how will you know I'm not just making a donation I would have made anyhow?
I don't. For that matter, I don't know you're making a donation at all. This is the honor system. But, come on, it's charity; it would be a jerk move to lie. I do ask that you let me know what charity you donated to and in what amount so that I can bask in the reflected glory (and also so that I can eventually post how much this raised). Please make the donation first, though, to minimize forgetting.
Have you vetted all the charities you suggest?
Haphazardly. In general I tried to choose organizations which I knew by reputation. Those that qualify for ratings on Charity Navigator (ie. American, older than 3 years) have four or five stars. For the record, charity:water, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontières, Donors Choose and Kiva are among my own favorites and Sick Kids Hospital has treated family members of mine.
Can I donate in the name of the person who will be receiving the item as a gift, and then present it to them as part of the gift?
Sounds great.
Originally posted at http://zelempa.dreamwidth.org/74305.html (
comments)
DVD TV/Collections
Alias seasons 1, 2, and 3 (together or separately) in super-slim one-dvd-movie-sized packaging. Suggested donation: $25 a season to Oxfam because I have to get them in somehow.
Boy Meets World seasons 2 and 3 (together or separately), watched once or twice with usual minor corner wear to edges of cardboard casing. Suggested donation: $25 a season to Donors Choose to help fund a classroom project such as the time Mr. Turner got them to all make videos.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 1, new in shrink wrap. Suggested donation: $25 or a pint of blood to American Red Cross
Degrassi: The Next Generation seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 (together, separately, or in any combination). All watched once. Suggested donation: $25 per set to Sick Kids Hospital to help Toronto kids with medical issues, like SOME OF THE MAJOR CHARACTERS IN THIS SHOW
Due South seasons 3 and 4 (one item), aka the complete RayK collection. Don't worry, I still love these, I just bought the complete series collection so these are redundant. Suggested donation: $25 to Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society to help conserve Arctic wildlife or Chicago Coalition for the Homeless so nobody has to live at the Canadian Consulate.
Longitude, new in shrink wrap. Suggested donation: $25 to VFW, although strictly speaking Jeremy Irons was not a veteran of a foreign war in this, was he?
Middlemarch, BBC series from 1993. Suggested donation: $15 to Doctors Without Borders in honor of Dr. Lydgate's dreams.
The Guild seasons 1 and 2 DVD (it's like 2 hours long total; does this still count as a collection?) Suggested donation: $10 to Organization for Transformative Works to support the cause of entertainment for us, by us, damn the man!
Horatio Hornblower with Ioan Gruffudd, complete set (8 feature length movies in slimline cases/slipcase). Watched once. Suggested donation: $35 to Oceana to help conserve the world's oceans
The Sentinel Season 1, new in shrink wrap. I bought this to throw money at the creators and cast my vote for future seasons on DVD (a pipe dream, sigh), but I really only watch my ripped video files. Suggested donation: $25 to Amazon Conservation Team to help conserve Peruvian rainforests and the way of life of the indigenous peoples who live there.
Stargate Atlantis: Season 1, watched a few times, slipcase in terrible condition (I bought it used and it has a lot of sticker residue. Really obviously a used copy.) But it plays perfectly well and the individual DVDs and slimline cases look good. Suggested donation: $15 to Servicemembers United to help their efforts to get DADT repealed for reals this time.
Stargate Atlantis: Season 2, new in shrink wrap. What can I say, I don't watch shows on DVD. Suggested donation: $20 to charity:water to provide 20 years of well water to people who don't have fresh drinking water... unlike the people in Atlantis, who presumably had plenty? (Okay, it's kind of weak, but charity: water is one of my favorite organizations!)
Star Trek: The Next Generation seasons 4, 5, 6, 7 (together or separately). Watched a couple of times each, cardboard cases have normal minor shelf wear. All DVDs played well last time I checked. Suggested donation: $25 Kiva microloan for each season. (If you do make a Kiva loan for any of these items, I'd love it if you counted it toward the Fandom team. Or, you can issue a $25 gift certificate to zelempa at gmail dot com and I will count it toward the Fandom team.) Why is Kiva for Star Trek? I had some justification about equality of resources and the kind of Earth utopia Star Trek imagines, but really, I just couldn't find anywhere else to put it.
Xena: Warrior Princess Season 2, watched once or twice with usual minor corner wear to edges of cardboard casing. Season includes my favorite episode, "The Return of Callisto," as well as the infamous moment where Autolycus kisses Gabrielle passionately while possessed by Xena (which is I believe is the first canon Xena/Gabby kiss). Suggested donation: $25 to Doctors Without Borders because Xena invented CPR?
The X-Files seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (together or separately). 4 and 5 are new in shrink wrap. All in bilingual Canadian packaging. Suggested donation: $25 per season to American Lung Association in memory of the cigarette smoking man.
DVD Movies
All prewatched but in clean original packaging.
Captain Blood with Errol Flynn. Suggested donation: $15 to blood:water mission which has a dual mission to provide AIDS relief and fresh drinking water in Africa.
Compulsion, slightly fictionalized story of Leopold and Loeb, with Orson Welles as Clarence Darrow. Suggested donation: $15 to Books Through Bars to provide books and education to prisoners (apparently Nathan Leopold taught at the prison school during his incarceration).
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, new in shrink wrap. Suggested donation: $10 to Organization for Transformative Works to support the cause of entertainment for us, by us, damn the man!
Foreign Correspondent, Hitchcock movie with Joel McCrea. Suggested donation: $15 to Public Radio International.
Inherit the Wind, slightly fictionalized story of the Scopes Monkey Trial with Spencer Tracy as Clarence Darrow. Suggested donation: $15 to a Donors Choose science project.
Prisoner of Zenda, double feature with both the original 1937 movie with Ronald Colman (great) and the 1952 remake with Stewart Granger (terrible). Suggested donation: $15 to Amnesty International to help free political prisoners.
Some Like It Hot classic crossdressing romp with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Surprisingly nonoffensive! Suggested donation: $15 to National Defense Resources Council to fight global warming because some do not like it hot.
Star Trek 2009 reboot. Suggested donation: $15 donation to Kiva operating costs.
Strangers on a Train, Hitchcock movie with Farley Granger. Supposedly the gayest Hitchcock movie although I think Rope is much gayer. Suggested donation: $15 to National Association of Railroad Passengers with their dreamy and impossible goal of making rail a viable means of transit in USA.
Wet Hot American Summer Incredibly surreal and funny summer camp comedy with the Stella guys, Janeane Garofalo, H. John Benjamin, and the brother from Frasier. Suggested donation: $15 to Hole in the Wall Camps to fund camps for children with serious illnesses.
Wilde Stephen Fry as Oscar Wilde. Suggested donation: $15 to Lambda Legal because if they had been around then maybe things would have ended better for Oscar.
More details: Q&A
Can you ship outside the U.S.?
Yes, generally, I will agree to this if you make a slightly larger donation to reflect the difference in shipping costs. Claim your item so no one else snags it, then email me and we can discuss the details. ETA: These are all region 1 DVDs, make sure your DVD player can handle that!
Can I claim more than one thing?
Absolutely. Then I can combine shipping.
Must I make the suggested donation?
No. You can donate to any charity you like, although it should be an approved 501(c) organization or registered charity in your country. (Most of the suggested charities on this list are American, although some are Canadian. To save on bank fees, donate to an organization that accepts your currency.) You can also donate in any amount you like. Don't think my stuff is worth that much? That's fair. Want to give more? Even better.
I donate to charity all the time. Can I just tell you how much I gave this month and claim that amount worth of stuff?
For this, my hope is that you will make a donation in addition to whatever you normally give. It can be to the same organization(s) if you like, but add whatever you would be willing to spend on the item(s) you've claimed to your normal amount.
But how will you know I'm not just making a donation I would have made anyhow?
I don't. For that matter, I don't know you're making a donation at all. This is the honor system. But, come on, it's charity; it would be a jerk move to lie. I do ask that you let me know what charity you donated to and in what amount so that I can bask in the reflected glory (and also so that I can eventually post how much this raised). Please make the donation first, though, to minimize forgetting.
Have you vetted all the charities you suggest?
Haphazardly. In general I tried to choose organizations which I knew by reputation. Those that qualify for ratings on Charity Navigator (ie. American, older than 3 years) have four or five stars. For the record, charity:water, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontières, Donors Choose and Kiva are among my own favorites and Sick Kids Hospital has treated family members of mine.
Can I donate in the name of the person who will be receiving the item as a gift, and then present it to them as part of the gift?
Sounds great.
Originally posted at http://zelempa.dreamwidth.org/74305.html (
comments)