Salam,
Yesterday, I had spent a lot of time perusing through blogs and online journals (I must concede, I do enjoy this "free time" I have from productivity; surely it will not last long! This week, I start my night shifts at the rescue house; July 16- Day 1 of EMT training; and another several hours lent to a few ankle-biters that I'll be reading to at the local library. )

A friend of mine had recently posted a rather hortatory entry (like that word? hor-ta-tory-sounds kind of haram 8-O ) about collecting spare change and making use of it. I think it's a wonderful idea, and rather simple. It could work as easily as follows:

1. Make the intention of collecting any spare change in sight over a timed course and pledge to donate your accumulated wealth to a noble cause. My friend had suggested Darfur relief.

2. Insist that the members of your household get involved. Perhaps a jelly jar in the kitchen, shoebox in the family room, or a place(s) where compiling pennies from the floor and nickels from beneath the sofa cushions can be made convenient.

3. Maybe once a month or each new year, donate all that spare change to a local cause or somewhere as grand and in need of relief like the third-world.

We ask how anyone can make such a difference. But as my friend, Wafa, said in her blog, if we invited our friends and family to join us in this facile effort, then we can make a difference, especially if we all contributed to the same cause like Darfur.

For those of you considering this undemanding project, then may God give us the consistency and motivation to achieve our goal to ultimately fulfill one of our basic duties to Him- charity.