loading...
By Joe Fries
For mostly professional reasons, I generally listen to news or talk radio when I’m in my car.
I flip between them when one begins boring me to death with banal banter.
Earlier this week, the guys at the local station were prattling on about their company’s Haiti fundraising efforts. Too early for shameless self-promotion on the back of death and destruction, I thought. Over to CBC.
There, the host was plugging a Canadian musician who had an upcoming show in Kelowna, and she then spun one of his tracks, Blue and Grey.
Shades of blue and grey
Line the streets today
Wow. How uplifting. Can someone get this guy a Xanax?
Dejected, I simply turned off the radio. Alone with my thoughts – a scary thing indeed – I felt a pang of guilt for turning a deaf ear to the crisis in Haiti. But it’s getting a lot harder to do that, as companies, NGOs and governments are helping to rebuild lives – and making sure everyone knows about it.
Canada NewsWire, the go-to place for press releases, on Wednesday featured no fewer than 11 different missives from groups looking for a little hype for their efforts.
Among them, Loblaw was trumpeting the fact its customers have donated $400,000 to relief efforts. A pharmaceutical company was promoting its gift of drugs. World Vision was particularly active, not only calling for a moratorium on adoptions from Haiti, but also making its head honcho available for a photo op in Toronto upon his return from the disaster area.
I know that charities need to do a bit of self-promotion, not only to show people where their donations are going, but also to help secure future donations. And maybe it will inspire others to help. My question is: Shouldn’t these people help now and save the PR for later?
I know what you’re thinking: And just what have you done to help, Fries?
And the answer is nothing. Yet.
Turns out there is a way I can help and it involves one of my favourite hobbies.
BC Liquor Stores, all 197 of them, are offering customers an easy way to make Haiti donations right at the cash register, in $2 or $5 denominations. Not only do I plan to visit a booze store in the near future, I’ve also helped get the message out. My work here is done.
Seriously, though, my heart goes out to those affected and I really do applaud those people who are helping to make a difference.
FOOTNOTE:
As my two faithful readers will recall, last week I wrote about my visit to a Hutterite colony in northern B.C. My suggestion that one of the kids was the victim of a shallow gene pool was admittedly harsh, but I figured the blowback from the Hutterite community would be minor, given their limited embrace of technology. Wrong. I actually got two e-mails from self-proclaimed Hutterites.
One fellow tried to explain why most of the colony members shared the same last name, but added that he also enjoyed a little humour. Another woman told me I shouldn’t pretend to understand her culture or presume to have knowledge of genetic disorders, for which I – admittedly – have no clinical training. My apologies on both.
joe@kelowna.com
250-575-4303
