Welcome! “Where Bloggers Live” started out kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…with bloggers! We all like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes, interests, and lives, so every month this wonderful  family of amazing women shares their work-spaces, homes, towns, and thoughts, with posts based on specific prompts. It’s been so interesting over the years to see the different ways each of us interpret the topics.

This moth’s prompt is: If I Could Donate $100,000 to Any Charity, Which Would It Be and Why?

I don’t fantasize about windfalls (much). I pinch pennies, and calculate airfare and monthly rent.

But I do have causes that matter deeply to me. When I can, I send $10 here, $25 there.

After watching my sister and our family struggle for ten years with her early-onset dementia, that issue became painfully personal. I witnessed her slow decline. I saw her withdraw from life. Her personality shifted from ever-gentle, kind Snow White to – hate to say it – something closer to the evil stepmother. Ouch.

That change made everything harder for the people caring for her…especially my brother-in-law, who carried the weight 24/7 right up until the end. I often think about what $100,000 might have meant during those years. Professional care. Someone who could have coaxed her outside for some fesh air or a change of scenery. Someone to relieve my brother-in-law so he could rest, breathe, live a little.

Research matters, of course. But if that money could ease the daily reality for families in the thick of it? I would happily write that check.

Another cause close to my heart – shocker – is animals.

If I had that kind of money, I would direct it toward rescuing horses caught in the slaughter pipeline. It’s only in recent years that I’ve understood how common this is; how many horses end up in kill pens at auction. These aren’t animals bred for meat. They’re sport horses, race horses, babies, even stolen horses. Some are lame or injured and no longer “earning their keep” for owners they’ve served faithfully all their lies.

Many people believe slaughterhouses have closed in the U.S. Technically true. The workaround is that horses are simply shipped to Canada or Mexico instead.

Horses are so needlessly good. They cooperate with our demands. They work for us. And then too many of them end up crammed into overcrowded trailers, standing nose to tail in dark pens, awaiting their cruel fate.

I would love to fund a rehabilitation program – land, veterinary care, staff – where injured and old horses are treated, made comfortable, and allowed to live out their years in peaceful retirement on a grassy hillside.

Both choices come down to the same thing: easing suffering when it’s hardest to bear.

I don’t have $100,000. But if I did, I know exactly where it would go.

Please visit my friends’ blogs to see where their philanthropic hearts lie.

Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Sally at Within a World of My Own

Leslie Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After  <- I’m waiting with bated breath to see if Leslie joins us this month!

 

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