I got to know of this BlogCatalog initiated Bloggers Unite charity blogging where bloggers are encouraged to set aside one particular day to do an act of kindness and then blog about it, submit pictures to prove their charitable act and to win prizes, including an iPod touch.

You know, I always believed that we do charity because we want to not because a blogging company asked us to and dangle and iPod in front of us. And to tell about our charitable deed, well, it just cancels whatever brownie points we have garnered.

To me, acts of kindness is usually random and not pre-planned unless it’s done during one of the many annual festivities.

If you have done an act of kindness, will you blog about it? I won’t. But then maybe it is just me *shrug*

I got to know of FreeRice.com this morning while blog hopping. Am sorry I do not know which blog it was anymore as I visited too many blogs, so I could not link up to the blog here.

Anyway, this is a very nice concept of donating rice. The amount we donate will depend on how good our vocabulary is! The website says that with every word we get right, they will donate twenty grains of rice on our behalf through the United Nations to help end world hunger.

I played this game for a little while to get a feel of it before writing this post and managed to “donate” a little rice. I love this concept because we get to test our vocabulary. They do have very tricky questions and most of the words here are words that we do not use on a regular basis. I believe that if we play this often enough, we can even improve on our vocabulary. Also, it does not cost us anything to “donate” rice except for a little time.

I thought that I would continue playing after a nap but my computer restarted by itself while I was napping and I lost my thirty something vocab level and grains of rice and had to start all over again. If you plan to play this, it’s best to set the option to remember your computer so that you can continue from where you left off. I believe people who love words will want to come and play regularly since it is rather addictive!

I think that the administrators could make this game even more challenging by DEDUCTING our rice donation, besides lowering our vocab level, each time we get a word wrong! And the higher our level of vocabulary, the higher the stakes become.

A couple of year ago, my friend wanted to buy me a pashmina shawl as a birthday gift. That was the first time I heard of pashminas. I declined because it is not suitable for our weather and I would only have kept it unused.

If I had that pink pashmina with me right now, I would have twisted it into the shape of a ribbon and hung it by my window that is visible from the outside. October is a month of breast cancer awareness.

Last year when I started to blog, I wrote about it and this year is no different. I believe that every October will see me blogging about breast cancer education, awareness and research. I believe that it us our duty to spread the word, what more that I am a woman and the breast cancer threat is very real.

Although as a individual we are not able to do much, it is good to note that many companies are chipping in too. Pashmina International, for example, is donating 10% of all sales that include a pink pashmina to breast cancer research.

While searching for some information on the internet, I came upon a non-profit charitable site that encourages visitors to click on the advertisements and the revenue generated from this activity will be channelled to various charitable bodies or a specific cause that is championed by the website.

Actually, I have known of this kind of “click to donate” sites a long time ago and it is not a new concept but since I stumbled on it a few days ago, I was reminded of what we can contribute in a small way to charitable causes just by doing our normal thing: Surfing the internet.

The problem with me is that I never remember to go to these sites to click on the advertisements. I wrote in a previous post that I have to open more than thirty sites each time I turn my computer on and this number does not even include the blogs that I read occasionally.

I think I need to place all these Click to Donate sites to my bookmarks and access them daily or else I will forget again. Getting old *sigh*

The other day, I was checking my traffic stats and came upon a referrer called Every Click. I have never heard of this website before and wondered why my link appeared on the site.

I checked it out and was surprised that this is a search engine that helps charity. I am thinking this is like Slash My Search, except that we get paid for searching via Slash My Search while the revenue generated through searching from EveryClick would be channeled to charitable organizations.

While these search engines are good and benefit our self (Slash My Search) or others (EveryClick), I find that it’s quite a waste of time using them if we cannot get the information we seek as their search results are not comprehensive and then we would have to fire up Google.

So yeah, Google is still my number one search engine even if EveryClick is for charity.

I came across a very good charity organization that takes car donations in Los Angeles. I have known that to be charitable, we can actually donate anything we can, but this is the first organization that I come across that accepts cars big time, even providing free towing in Southern California.

I always believe that as an individual, it is difficult to make a difference but if we all combine forces, yes, we can make a difference. And with the co-ordination of Car Angel, which, by the way, also accepts trucks, boats and even Recreational Vehicles, even if they are no longer road worthy.

Donating to Car Angel, which supports single mothers, orphans, rehabs, widows and prison reforms, we can actually select which charities we would like to support with our donation. The good thing is that Car Angel issues us a full fair market value receipt so that we can get a tax rebate.

L.A. car donation is so easy now thanks to Car Angel who will take care of everything for us as soon as we decide to donate our car. I would surely donate my car in Los Angeles if I live in Southern California.

That being said, Car Angel is surely a unique organization that helps us to help the needy in a hassle-free way. I believe that more and more people would lend a helping hand once they realize the ease of reaching out to those who need our help the most.

My sister and I are both animal lovers. If I lived in my own house, it would have looked like a zoo but my parents are not that keen on animals. My dad is OK with them but of the thirteen years that I have my two dogs, my mom has never pet them or cared for them at all. Isn’t that weird?

My sister subsequently moved to Tennessee and she says there is an animal rights non-profit organization called Humane Society of Memphis & Shelby County.

But my sister and I are caught in a chicken and egg situation, in the way that we definitely would love to devote some time to charitable bodies on animal rights (there is an SPCA in my hometown), we both have to work very long hours that leave us no time to do what we want. And if we had spent time on charities like these, our families would be left wanting.

However, we always try to educate people on animal rights. Yes, animals have rights too, but you will be surprised how many people treat animals as some “thing”. Having kept pets all my life, I can certainly understand that animals have as much right as any human being to live in this world and as “higher beings”, we should care for and protect them.

Later on in life when we are more financially stable, my sister and I hope to be able to devote time and be hands-on in our favorite charities on animal rights.

Much appreciation to Mr. Navtej Kohli, a philanthropist and business owner, for making this post possible. To read more on Mr. Navtej’s philanthropic efforts, please check out the Tej Kohli Foundation – Five Years of Philanthropy.

Mr. Navtej is also on Facebook, LinkedIn and SEOmoz.