Free Republic

Cases in West Africa's Ebola outbreak this year have risen to 2,240, including 1,229 deaths, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday, reporting the toll in four countries, including Nigeria. While Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and No. 1 oil producer, appears to be containing its smaller outbreak, Liberia and Sierra Leone are struggling to halt the spread of the deadly Ebola virus among their populations. On Friday, these small two West African nations and a medical charity chided the WHO for its slow response, saying more action was needed to save victims threatened by the disease and hunger.

One in seven Americans – more than 46 million people, including 12 million children and 7 million seniors – rely on food pantries and meal service programs to feed themselves and their families, according to a new study from Feeding America, a provider of charitable food assistance to low-income Americans. In what Feeding America says is “the largest and most comprehensive study of people seeking food assistance in the United States ever conducted,” more than 60,000 people confidentially answered questions about their personal circumstances. The study represents findings from 200 Feeding America food banks, which annually provide more than 3...

I wonder how the Ebola doctor feels now that his humanitarian trip has cost a Christian charity much more than any services he rendered. What was the point? Whatever good Dr. Kent Brantly did in Liberia has now been overwhelmed by the more than $2 million already paid by the Christian charities Samaritan's Purse and SIM USA just to fly him and his nurse home in separate Gulfstream jets, specially equipped with medical tents, and to care for them at one of America's premier hospitals. (This trip may be the first real-world demonstration of the economics of Obamacare.) There's little...

Everyone who knew Gershon Burd knew he was "a nice guy." He would purposely sit by an entrance to his yeshiva study group so that he could smile at people as they walked in -- but they really had no idea the depths of his goodness until he died last year, on his 40th birthday, in an accident. Testimonies poured in to his wife of 10 years about how he made lives better -- including through the charity he had quietly established to give money away. By only spending the minimum on yourself, you may find that you have...

A Methodist church in West Virginia was stymied in its efforts to help the needy last week when the county health department told them their plan violated state health codes. The parishioners at First United Methodist Church had decided to install a large refrigerator outside their building that those in need could access at any time. Anticipating concerns about food safety, they planned to stock it with only prepackaged food, and built a cage around it to prevent small children from climbing inside. “We just wanted a way for more people to have access to food, along with some privacy...

"For generations now, we have denied the food of revealed truth to our children; and we have permitted the moral polluters to dump their garbage into our culture with abandon. Why then, are we surprised that ours has become a stunted and sick society?" - Patrick J. Buchanan The times are growing very dark. Everywhere signs are emerging which point to the appearance of the Man of Sin. A Brazilian heavy metal band is announcing the Age of Antichrist (see here). We have a Pontiff who preaches a "live and let live" philosophy (see here) which is nothing less than...

America isn’t just a bit more generous than your typical country. We’re an order of magnitude (and counting) more generous than most countries, including Germany and Japan. ... “American capitalism differs from all other forms of industrial capitalism” because it focuses "on both the creation of wealth (entrepreneurship) and the reconstitution of wealth (philanthropy). Philanthropy is part of the implicit social contract that continuously nurtures and revitalizes economic prosperity." ... nonprofits must learn that they are not in an “independent sector.” They are dependent not just on that abstraction known as the economy but also, horrors, on its heroic leaders,...

Williams Guevara-Martinez was almost 17 when he left his home near San Salvador, El Salvador, and headed north with three other youth and a 30-something guide known as a “coyote.” Guevara’s older brother Adam, had paid the coyote thousands of dollars for the 2,000-mile trip, which took 12 days. Guevara traveled by foot and car, finally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the back of a truck. Fifteen minutes later, immigration officials discovered his illegal entry and sent him to a Texas shelter. He was there 24 days before flying from Houston to Baltimore, where he was reunited with two brothers,...

You can watch the 1-minute video "Paying Zakat to non-Muslims" by Sheikh Assim L. Alhakeem by clicking on the "Enza Ferreri Blog" link above. Published on FrontPage Magazine. By Enza Ferreri It's Islam's holy month of Ramadan, and many advertising boards in the streets of London - or, more appropriately, Londonistan, as it befits a city with such a large, influential and radical Muslim population - invite Mohammedans to pay their zakat (Muslim obligatory charity). Zakat donations in the UK have greatly increased in the last few years, and Ramadan is traditionally a time when zakat giving grows. The posters...

Roughly 50 Ford Pinto enthusiasts are gathering today for the fourth annual "Pinto Stampede," a three-day event from Dearborn, Mich. to Hell, Mich and back to Dearborn -- the birthplace of the Ford Pinto. The caravan of Ford Pintos, produced from 1971-1980, will make several stops on their journey including a visit to the Henry Ford Museum, the Ford Product Development Center, the Ford & Mercury Restorers Club Car Show and other landmarks on their ride to 'Hell and Back.' "The Pinto Stampede enables Pinto enthusiasts to celebrate our cherished little cars while doing something meaningful for others," said Norm...

Lawyers for billionaire Beanie Baby creator and convicted tax cheat Ty Warner say he’s “a self-made man with a generous heart” and a federal judge was right not to send him to the big house. Prosecutors were left fuming in January after Warner was handed just two years probation and 500 hours community service for hiding $100 million in secret Swiss bank accounts to con the IRS. In February, they asked the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to order Warner be resentenced. But attorneys for the 69-year-old Oak Brook toy industry titan argued in a 57-page court filing Thursday...

“He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.” Deuteronomy 10:18 (ESV)Christians are used to hearing people say “it’s the Christian thing to do.” Most often, it is by people deeply hostile to Christianity who say it. I get this all the time — even more so since I announced I am going to seminary. Liberals with no sense of Christianity want to tell Christians how they must behave and, by and large, hate us when we behave as Christians. Now, I know many of you do not share my faith....

PARIS -- Billionaire Hungarian-American oligarch George Soros is an extremely concerned humanitarian who can be counted on to put his considerable bank balance where his concerns are. Lately, those concerns have included Ukraine and other former Soviet satellite states; Syria; immigration rights in America; the U.S. banking system; and the Great Lakes region of Africa, where all the mining opportunities just happen to be. Perhaps he could lay off the generosity long enough for us to recover from it all. Humanitarianism and charity can't always be taken at face value, if only because there is no better front for...

You may be wondering what could possibly be wrong with free money... As the heirs of many successful entrepreneurs are wont to do, Sam Walton’s make generous donations with their family’s fortune. For example, Wal-Mart (WMT) announced last week that it would distribute $3 million to charities in the Big Apple, including $1 million to the New York Women’s Foundation for job training and $30,000 to Bailey House, a program that distributes groceries to low-income New Yorkers. Yet rather than saying “Thank you,” the liberals of New York City decided to say “No” to the money.

The billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, known best for shepherding big money to conservative causes and candidates, have given a $25 million grant to the United Negro College Fund, the organization announced Friday. The money will come from Koch Industries Inc. and the Charles Koch Foundation, which are headed by the brothers. Most of the money ($18.5 million) will go toward a scholarship program. The other $6.5 million is provided for general support to historically black colleges and universities and the UNCF, with $4 million set aside for loan assistance. The UNCF is the nation's largest minority education group. Such a...

A GPS device hidden inside a teddy bear on Tuesday led police to a thief. Athens-Clarke County police said that Mid-Atlantic Clothing Recycling had recently been experiencing thefts of clothing from its collection bin at Georgia Square Mall. To combat the thefts, a company manager concealed a GPS device inside a teddy bear and he placed it in a bag of clothing that was then tossed into the collection bin, according to police. At about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, the manager called police to report that the teddy bear was on the move, headed toward Timothy Road. An officer in the...

I don’t even know what to say. Via the New York Post (hat tip to NRO), more than half of the members of the New York City Council have served Walmart with a letter demanding that the company stop making millions of dollars in charitable donations to local groups: Twenty-six of the 51 members of the Council charged in the letter that the world’s biggest retailer’s support of local causes is a cynical ploy to enter the market here. “We know how desperate you are to find a foothold in New York City to buy influence and support here,” says...

Walmart, bastion of cheap patio furniture, Mickey Mouse Dolman t-shirts and financially abused workers, has been doing its best to weasel its way into NYC for a while now. And like any good corporation hellbent on destroying the very fabric of the so-called American Dream, it looks like Walmart's trying to curry favor with New Yorkers by funneling cash into charitable funds—but the City Council smells a rat, and they've told the retailer to back off. According to the Post, 26 of the Council's 51 members have penned an open letter to Walmart and the Walton Family Foundation demanding they...

More than half the members of the City Council have fired off a letter to Walmart demanding that it stop making millions in charitable contributions to local groups here. Twenty-six of the 51 members of the Council charged in the letter that the world’s biggest retailer’s support of local causes is a cynical ploy to enter the market here. “We know how desperate you are to find a foothold in New York City to buy influence and support here,” says the letter, obtained by The Post and addressed to Walmart and the Walton Family Foundation. “Stop spending your dangerous dollars...

A memorial of candles, daisies and a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe clustered around a black-and-white photo of 16-year-old Oscar Torres, who was shot and killed on the spot May 26. Days later, his blood still stained the ground. The memorial was steps away from Viva House, a Catholic Worker House and soup kitchen. Its founders, Brendan Walsh and Willa Bickham, didn’t know Torres or his family, but have reached out to his parents and brother who live nearby. Viva House also made a donation to his parents to help them transport his body to his native Mexico, where...