Column: Fashionable donations
July 5, 2005
With the 2005 Tour de France underway, I will dedicate this column to my most hated fad of the last year: Livestrong bracelets and all of their copycats. As most of you know, Lance Armstrong, with the assistance of Nike, came up with the idea to sell yellow rubber bracelets to raise money and awareness for cancer research. While this is truly a great cause, I have some serious problems with how people have dealt with such bracelets.
Let me relate a true story. I have had cancer twice. Once when I was in high school, and then again last school year. I have fully recovered both times. My sister apparently tells some of her friends about me and how I “beat” cancer. I really do not mind that she does this; if my story is a source of inspiration and hope, she can tell however many people she pleases. Not too long ago, I went to her college graduation party and there was a person with a Livestrong bracelet on. This person came up to me and told me that I was a real inspiration and then pointed to her bracelet saying “I support you.” I was greatly amused by this gesture. She spent one dollar for a little rubber bracelet and seemed to have some amount of pride in her contribution to a charitable cause. I began to wonder: do others act the same way? Do people wear their minuscule donations with pride? I am guessing that other people do, given the sheer number of people wearing them.
So many other charities have jumped on the rubber bracelet bandwagon. From tsunami relief funds to lupus to diabetes, almost every major charity group has jumped aboard with their own color and little catchy phrase. The over-saturation of the rubber bracelet market cannot possibly be helping to raise awareness for worthy causes like the original Livestrong bracelets did. In fact, I am so sick of seeing them that I am more likely to roll my eyes at people who are wearing them than to ask what charity they may be supporting. I sometimes feel the intense urge to ask people if they even know what charity they are supporting or if red is just their favorite color.
Companies seeking profit have also hopped into the ring to test their luck. Meijer sells packs of three plain rubber bracelets for three dollars and various “girly” stores are known to stock pink and purple ones that have such fantastic messages as “HOTTIE” imprinted in the cheap rubber band. On eBay, there are literally thousands of copycat bracelets for auction. Once again, a seemingly great idea is so overdone that it loses its strength and message. That’s America for you.
I guess that my greatest problem with charity in America is that so many people expect something in exchange for their contributions. The charities have been responding to such expectations with little throw-away products for years. My mom always gets sheets and sheets of return address stickers for donating small sums to the American Cancer Society or the American Heart Association. I know that I have gotten various useless items that I have immediately tossed in the permanent file. Can we not just donate for the sake of donating and help save our environment by not expecting little gifts that will just end up in the city dump in a matter of years? Surely many of these bracelet-wearers also donate larger sums to worthwhile charities, but to those who do not, why not donate ten dollars to a worthy cause instead of paying one dollar for a rubber bracelet you will throw away in a couple of years anyway? Many charities would have a much bigger impact on the world and everyone’s life if we looked past our greedy nature and just stopped expecting gifts in return for our charity.
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Todd Swiss is a senior in LAS. His column appears on Tuesdays. He can be reached at [email protected]