The Community Food Bank

Times are hard. Money is tight. Which is both a reason not to give money and a reason why giving money is even more important than usual. The need is greater than it's been in years.

I mentioned the public school tax credit in an earlier post, where you can give money to a school or schools of your choice by December 31 and get 100% of it back when you file your state taxes.

You have a similar option for giving to non-profits that help working-poor families. You can give $200 as an individual and $400 as a couple and get it all back when you file your taxes (assuming you owe more than $200-400 in state taxes). This one is a bit more complicated, in that you have to give more than you gave in an earlier, baseline year, which is either 1996 or the first time you filed an Arizona return and itemized charitable deductions. You can find the information on Arizona form 321.

Though I give elsewhere, my main giving goes to The Community Food Bank. The group has a flier in this morning's Star, which reminded me to write about it.

I'm cheap and I love a bargain, which is one of the reasons I give to the Food Bank. Every $1 I give means $9 of food will be distributed. That's what I call bang for your buck! And nothing seems more vital to me than putting food in people's stomachs.

They take check or plastic. They're happy to get one time donations, of course, but what they really love are guaranteed monthly donations where they take it straight out of you credit card every month. That's what I do. It means the money is gone before I have a chance to think about it.