Smile 

(and help others)

Do you have Amazon Prime? If so, be sure you set up an Amazon Smile account. This change allows you to pick a charity and Amazon then donates a small percentage of your purchase to your selected charity at no cost to you. 


Personally, I have mine set up to donate to the Fowler O'Sullivan Foundation, a non-profit that looks for missing hikers after Search and Rescue has given up hopes of finding them alive. There are a disturbing number of outdoors people that go missing every year and FOF seeks to bring closure to as many families of the missing as they possibly can. 


(Full disclosure: The founder of FOF is a personal friend and frequent hiking partner so I’m even more sure that any and all donations that I make will go to achieving the mission.)


At any rate, it costs us nothing to use the “smile” feature and even the smallest of donations add up when there are enough of them so please consider adding FOF or a charity that you are passionate about to your account. 


Your “smile” may bring a smile to others.


Note:  Amazon has discontinued the Amazon Smile program and no longer allows buyers to choose charities which benefit from their purchases.  Instead, Amazon made a one-time donation to those charities which represented the average of 3 months of benefits.  Amazon sent an email to all Smile members indicating that they would continue to donate to charities but, henceforth, they would decide which charities would be deemed worthy of assistance.  


As with any business, it's their money and they can do as they wish but, for me, it certainly removes one of the reasons I was buying at Amazon.  I sincerely doubt that the FOF will be deemed worthy so I will likely forego future purchases; perhaps make do with a little less and, instead, donate to money directly to the charities of MY choosing.


In case you wonder:  I'm no longer smiling.