just...

I am aware of the fact that we are in a "financial crisis". It seems charities are and will continue to suffer due to the fact that no one wants to spend an extra cent these days.
Even still I have decided to make this the year that I make monthly donations to the things that are important to me. If you only donate five dollars a month to one charity it's better than nothing and you are helping something or someone somewhere. Here are two food related charities I think are important.

Whole Planet Foundation
I am all for eating locally and supporting our own neighborhood farmers but lets be honest, we do not only buy what is local and in season every time we do our grocery shopping. The micro loans are offered to the poorest of the poor, with a focus on women, wanting to finance self-employment projects that will generate income. 100% of your donation goes to the mirco lending programing.

Help the Honey Bees
For some reason our honey bees are disappearing.
People this is not good. You really would be surprised to learn how important bees are in the pollination of our fruits and vegetables. We need them to do their job. Should they disappear entirely I am sure scientists will find a way to artificially pollinate our plants, however, I imagine this would raise the cost of our produce not to mention it's just not what nature intended.

I have also found two websites that can help assist you in finding and donating to charities. One is called Charity Navigator and the other is called Network for Good.
Charity Navigator is a guide to help donors make intelligent charitable giving decisions. Offers financial ratings of thousands of American nonprofit organizations and charities.
Network for Good allows you to keep all your donations organized and under one roof so to speak. For a small fee or percentage they take care of making any distributions to the organizations of your choice whether they're a one time or a monthly donation.

JUNK MAIL = WASTEFUL SPENDING
Best stated by Charity Navigator...
Spreading your money among multiple organizations not only results in your mail box filling up with more appeals, it also diminishes the possibility of any of those groups bringing about substantive change as each charity is wasting a large percentage of your gift on fund raising and overhead expenses.

Other charities I like....
PRASAD www.prasad.org
KIVA www.kiva.org
WWF www.worldwildlife.org
HUMANE SOCIETY www.hsus.org
HEIFER www.heifer.org
CANCER RESEARCH www.cancerresearch.org