Michelle Malkin has a post up talking about worthy causes to donate to, while we all celebrate precious time with our families contemplating the reason for the season. She asks for trackbacks to other worthy causes, and I’ve got one, Lizzie’s Troop Batteries. I wouldn’t have known about this if it weren’t for Ms Underestimated’s post on it here.

Little Lizzie, pictured here, died on May 2006, of cystic fibrosis. When she was alive, she also suffered with juvenile arthritis. No stranger to pain and suffering, she started an organization called Troop Batteries.

This was based on a conversation she had with the troops, when she asked them what aren’t they getting that they need. Ms. U has the video and more of the story. I was wondering what the battery idea was all about, so I went to the website. I had never thought of it, what a clever idea. Her goal was to put 4 batteries into the hands of each soldier, so they could run their electric shaver or game boy, cd players, or digital cameras. Have you ever loaded your digital camera with batteries, taken a few pictures, only to find that the batteries had died? This is a clever idea, and although she was featured on the Montel Williams Show telling her story, and he brought up the politics of the war (you know, that crap saying the war is wrong, etc.), she said told him to focus on the project, that this has nothing to do with anyone’s politics. This is a little dying girl who said she wanted to do something for our military men and women because they’re putting their lives on the line for us. Think about that, and then go to her website and make a contribution. Her goal was to send 1 million batteries over there, but she’d managed 1/2 million before she died. So others have taken up the cause on her behalf to fulfill her dream.

My personal feeling is that if Montel was going to make a feature story out of a little girl doing something for our troops, he really should have avoided taking a cheap shot at a dying little girl to make a political statement. At any rate, it would seem that his attempt to do that missed the mark.

God bless the efforts of all the organizatons who are doing things for our troops.

While I’m at it, my favorite cause is Any Soldier; an effort to get mail and care packages into the hands of soldiers, airmen, marines and others who don’t receive any mail from home. All of the organizations who do work like this, or like the effort that was started by a soldier to get shoes for Iraqi children, or the one to get medical texts on the bookshelves in Iraq because the doctors there were working from copies of 35-year old medical texts-these are all good causes to think about contributing to.

We all have so much goodness and so much in terms of material blessings. There is something incredible about giving to people less fortunate than ourselves simply because we have a loving heart.

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