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Dear Sponsors: Where do I begin?
I
know! Thank
you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank
you! Thank you! Uh
hem... I hope the animated
kiss isn't too annoying, but I really couldn't resist it. As I
said in my introduction, which explains the plight of students in
America on the home page, there are millions of students
in America alone, who could just kiss you for being willing to help us. My
job, as the creator of this site, is to give you some pointers as to how
to best make sure your donation goes to a bona fide student. Of
course, I can't make any guarantees. But I do believe following these
guidelines will help. If you have any further suggestions, please
contact me.
- Donate to a student you know.
You can search the ads by student name or your home town, etc.
See if there's a student you know.
- Tell a student you know about
this site, and then donate to them.
- Tell your community about this
site, so you can get your local students to participate...and then
donate to them.
- Let me know if you would like
me to add a category for a specific town or school. High
schools are o.k., too, but parents must create and be responsible
for the ad.
- Perhaps you could initiate a
project for the local school to get ads for their students.
If you don't personally know a
student:
- Check the student's email
address. Registered college students are assigned email addresses by
most colleges. Only faculty, staff and students are allowed to have these email
addresses. This is the easiest means of verifying a student is
for real, other than knowing them personally. At the top of the right-hand column on this page is
a search link to Google's university search. Not all colleges
are in it, but it will give you an idea of how to do this. In
the college search form, type in "student email directory," and you
will eventually find the email section on the college site, where
you can check to see what a valid student email address would look
like. Some colleges will even allow you to search the actual
student directory.
- For example, I used the Google
university search and found University of California, at Davis
(which is the nearest university to me on Google's list). I
typed in "student email directory, " and this is what I
got: Click
here for search result. (Just hit your back button to come
back here.) Now, I could type in a UC Davis student's name or
email address, and see if they're for real. As long as the
PayPal account is for that email address, you at least know that if
someone is pretending to be that student...the actual student will
be getting your donation! What a sweet little prank that would
be, eh?
-
You will be able to see the
student's email address when you click on their PayPal donate
button. You don't have to actually continue the donation
process. But once you link to PayPal, you will be able to see
the email address of the person who has that PayPal account.
Here is my donate button, where you can see what I'm talking
about. No pressure! Just take a peek, and hit the
"back" button on your browser, to come back here.
Click the
button to see my email address.
Following my advice, you would not
donate to me. Wah! (Giggle). My address is a yahoo
address. I love to use yahoo as my email, because no matter which
internet connection or hosting company I change to, my email address is
rock solid.
Also, the correspondence law
school I attend, Northwestern
California University School of Law, does not offer email. I
graduated May 30, 2003 from the Woodland campus of Yuba College
(California), which doesn't offer email to students. But if they
did--I would no longer have a college email address because I
graduated. Hmmm.
So, students like myself will have
a harder time proving themselves to be for real. But, if you don't
want to take a chance on someone like me, stick to the verifiable
college email addresses. Or, take a gamble, trust your instincts,
with money you can afford to spend. I regularly give change or a
spare dollar, or buy an extra hamburger at Jack-in-the-Box for strangers
who appear to be homeless. I suppose they could be fooling
me. I still feel good about myself, though.
- Support the money-making
ventures of the students on this site. Another option, if
you're unsure of a student's status, or you just don't feel
comfortable sending money, would be to check out the websites that
students have links to in their ads. Perhaps you can help them
by supporting their websites.
Can you write the donation off on
your U.S. taxes? Unfortunately, no. You can only write off
donations to charities which have non-profit tax status, which would
require me to refrain from trying to influence any legislation, and I
would need to form some kind of committee...and then I'd be exactly what
it is I've been whining about!
Plus, you can't write off
donations to individual students, anyway. Which explains why
scholarships work the way they do. People/businesses who need tax
write-offs can give generous donations to IRS-qualified charities.
Then the charities pay staff & overhead with the money, and some
committee decides which lucky student gets what's left over. And
so many deserving students get left behind. (The IRS website is
really well organized, if you'd like to check this out yourself, click
here: IRS Site)
So, I can't even offer you a tax
break here. Just the opportunity to make your bank account feel
smaller, while your heart feels bigger.
...I just have to do it again...
Thank
you!Thank you!
Most Respectfully Yours,
Karen
Click
Here to Go to the Student Ad Portal
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