What Oxfam is all about

Vision: A just world without poverty.

Mission: To build lasting solutions to poverty and injustice with a focus on women’s rights.

The challenge: “Be part of building a positive future now. A future where women and girls are free from the injustice of poverty.”

When women’s rights are respected…

…women are healthier, better educated, and better paid.

“One person in three in the world lives in poverty. Oxfam is determined to change that world by mobilizing the power of people against poverty.”

This charity works to find practical, innovative ways for people to lift themselves out of poverty and thrive. They save lives and help rebuild livelihoods when crisis strikes. Furthermore, they campaign so that the voices of the poor influence the local and global decisions that affect them.

It takes muscle

Empowering women is a community effort. Equality requires education. It requires protection. For this reason, laws must be changed and health tended to.

Your ideas and creativity help. Here at home. Around the world.

Participate in having a conversation. Let’s expand our understanding. What are the issues Canadian women face? What does it mean to be poor in Canada? Notice attitudes and beliefs about gender roles.

Pay attention to the policies and procedures of your own company. What’s happening at your children’s school? Or at the neighborhood pub? Are the women in your life safe?

Similarly, let’s reach beyond our neighbhorhoods and our own country. For instance, educate yourself on women’s issues around the world. Talking about what we learn is an active step in the right direction. As go the roots, so goes the tree. Dip your own roots deep into understanding. After that, allow that knowing to spread, and watch attitudes shift. As attitudes adjust, beliefs change.  Policies and laws change as a result.

Oxfam in cooperation

“Oxfam works with partner organizations and alongside vulnerable women and men to end the injustices that cause poverty.”

Visit the charity’s website or Facebook page to experience a world-expanding view! It’s not a shallow dive. They touch into bigBIG issues that break the heart and challenge beliefs about humanity. In addition, they inspire to consider the part that we each play in shifting the balance of power around the globe.

You will be introduced to survivors and thrivers! Inspiring women. Suffering peoples. Furthermore, you will be invited to offer a practical hand up in so many ways!

Consider this:

Is this the charity for you? Donate your recycle or re-sale ready vehicle. Free tow. Excellent donor support. A monetary gift to Oxfam!

No car to donate today? Visit their Take Action page. Explore ways to champion women’s equality.

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Stretching, adapting…

Every household with minor children is adapting in big ways right now.

School is happening in the kitchen! How’s it going, Moms? ‘Feeling pretty good about grade 6 Math?

The kids are home. Like, they’re home all the time. Alllllll the time. No sports, no music lessons outside the home, selective playdates.

So much online everything. Maybe a little parental guilt about the amount of screen time that’s happening, too.

Teachers and doctors and coaches are stretched the limits of creative Zoom classroom-ing.

It’s a lot. The most resourceful and creative parents I know are feelin’ the pressure.

…and just managing

In the last few weeks I’ve heard the phrase, “We’re just managing.” A lot. There’s not much sparkle or curiosity. Folks are really tired of being flexible and rolling with it all. “I’m lucky because my kids get along well, but do we ever need to get away from each other!”

We’ve settled in for this long and wildly unpredictable ride. We’re doing all we can to maintain normalcy and learning and play. And some of our fellows are struggling under burdens that go beyond boredom and sibling squabbles.

Children’s charities are here to help

Are you a family (or loved-one to a family) that has children facing into unique disruptions during the pandemic? Mental and physical illness are exacting parental challenges at the most secure of times. If you, or your dear ones, are parenting children with complex needs, these are difficult times, indeed.

Our children’s charities list has been growing for years. My quick count shows that we have 174 actively receiving gifts through Donate a Car Canada right now!

Visit our charities page to discover a cause that resonates with you. You’ll find education-based works. There are so many organizations reaching toward sick kids. Focusing on food and housing insecurity, charities are meeting felt needs. There are even children’s charities dedicated to giving children access to sports.

When you donate a car

Choosing a kid’s charity as your vehicle donation recipient means cash in hand for that cause. We’ll do all of the work of pick-up and processing for your donated car, truck, van, motorcycle, etc. We’ll get paid for the vehicle, and then send the net proceeds on to your charity of choice. Tax time will be made a little gentler when you’re reminded of the gift you extended to kids in un-gentle times.

Help making a quick-pick

Kids Help Phone Children’s Treatment Network Because I am a Girl Bullying Canada Children’s Bridge Foundation

Your local foodbank/children’s hospital (see our charities page)

Find out more about how all of this works on our FAQ page. Or, give us a call at 1-877-250-4904!

You are also invited to contact and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter! From there, you’ll be able to keep up to date on our program as well as see posts that showcase our amazing donors and charities across the country!

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Finding peace in a disrupted time is tough. For many of our receiving charities, that’s they’re work-a-day gig. They companion people in disrupted life circumstances.

What is peace, anyway?

The word peace may mean something different to you than it does to me. For some, peace is a feeling of calm, or the absence of conflict. Some people experience peace as the lack of any emotion at all. Others feel at peace when they have a sense of control in their lives.

I’ve come to identify peace as a quiet heart. Sometimes that means a feeling of spaciousness in my mind, heart, or even body. Another way of describing that is the ability to take a deep, deep breath — a feeling of relaxation and permission even when circumstances are very difficult.

That seems to be an important thing about peace? It is a sense of rightness, quiet, or well-being even when things all around are wobbling. Maybe even downright awful.

Can I find calm…even now?

What has the COVID-19 Pandemic been like for you? Are you having difficult finding peace in the midst of global fear? There are resources near you that can give you a little back-up if that’s what you need. Seek them out. Your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health are worth the effort.

You may be someone who has had a gentle experience of this unprecedented upheaval. If so, might you be one who offers peace to others? You may be one of the helpers. If so, thank you! Please take care of your Self while you’re reaching out to others. And if you’re having moments when a quiet heart is illusive, reach out for your own supports, ok? We need you to keep getting your own cup filled up so that you can continue to share with others.

What DACC is doing to help

Here at Donate a Car Canada we continue to work through this crisis time to aid Canadian charities in their ongoing work. Sometimes cool cash is the best way to bring calm into the midst of a storm. Part of our role in all of this is to keep right on processing vehicle donations. Those donations result in the much-needed dollars our charities depend on to keep purveying goodness in our hurting world. Thank you for considering how you might be a part of that!

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What has this past month been like for you? If you’re the parent of school-aged children you may be feeling a lot of pressure these days. Some of you are working from home while hands-on parenting. Home schooling used to be the practice of a minority (myself included), and is now the norm. If you have a child with special needs or learning challenges, you may have added complications.

Are you finding support in all of that? There are resources available to you. Do seek them out. This is a time for asking for what we need, and leaning into available resources.

Kim Golding on peaceful parenting

My colleague forwarded this on to me just yesterday. It’s from Kim S. Golding, 2015, with an added acknowledgement of Clover Childcare, Norfolk.

This gentle 7-step guide may be a helpful resource for all of us as parents? First, it offers a reminder for us to take a minute to check in with our self when facing into a parenting conundrum. “Calm begets calm; peace begets peace.” So say parenting specialists. That calm begins with us as parents. Take a look at this:

That trusty oxygen mask

The well-worn metaphor of the oxygen mask on the airplane applies here: Mom? Dad? Take your own deep breaths first. Then tend to your kiddo.

One of my practice instructors has patiently reminded me, “When we change the dialogue with which we speak to our self, we’ll change the way we speak to others. As we transform inwardly, we’ll change outwardly.” What does she mean by that? Be nice!

This is the time to be “excessively gentle” (John O’Donohue) with ourselves. And as we turn compassion inward, we’ll find ourselves more able to be patient and understanding outwardly.

May peaceful parenting bring about peaceful kiddos in a decidedly un-peaceful time in history. You’ve got this! And where you need back-up? Reach out. You are not alone.

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