ABIGAIL CIRELLI | staff writer

Charity work should be something done year-round, not just during holidays because of a guilt trip.

Many people feel the need to volunteer and participate in charity work during the holidays.

On Christmas Eve, there are soup kitchens that have more help than they know what to do with. The holiday spirit is apparent everywhere you look.

On the way out of department or grocery stores, you can hear the holiday tidings of carolers and Salvation Army representatives ringing that familiar silver bell. If you are in a particularly jovial spirit for the holidays, you might drop your change into the bucket. Smiling, you walk away, feeling good about having made someone’s life better with your miraculous coins that would otherwise get lost between the car seats.

Meanwhile, every three seconds, someone in the world dies of hunger.

Every three seconds, of every day, of every month, of every year.

Twelve percent of the United States is living below the poverty line. Forty percent of Americans will, at some time during a ten-year period, live below the poverty line. Yet, somehow, the disparity between those with and those without is a pressing problem around the 25th of December.

To many Americans, it is perceived as a problem that can be solved by donating a gift to a child who may not have dinner on the table.

Or perhaps it’s not the problem of poverty that those who donate to or participate in Christmas time charity seek to remedy.

Perhaps it is just guilt we seek to appease – guilt made more stinging when our society justifies spending hundreds of dollars per household on a holiday that celebrates... Jesus? Pardon my idealism.

In the old days, the word charity used to be synonymous with the word love, particularly when used in a Christian context. Somehow it has become a task to be checked off our holiday list.

No? Check out Lexus’ December to Remember ad I found printed on a full page of the Wall Street Journal. The advertisement displays a New Year’s Resolution list.

On the list – do some charity work, eat better, go skydiving, learn to cook, take dance lessons, treat myself to something nice. The last item on the list was checked off due to the brand new Lexus with a huge red bow displayed on the lower half of the page.

All the items on the list are things that would make the individual feel better, charity being at the top. Somehow, in the dichotomy of morality, the Golden Rule is right up there with eating more broccoli.

“I think that if people cared, we wouldn’t be doing just a one time thing simply because we feel guilty,” sophomore philosophy and theology double-major Lindsey Sinnot said.

Sophomore global studies major Savannah Stewart would say that people are already in the mood of giving at Christmas, so it makes them want to give to those in poverty.

“I think [Christmas time charities] are positive, and it really is a good thing because lots of children who are underprivileged don’t get gifts, and I think that to do that for them is really special for them.”

But even the legitimately admirable efforts of organizations trying to bring extra love around Christmas are susceptible to the guilt complex that so often taints giving.

Sophomore psychology major Alison Kuhn noted the attention that the young get.

“I remember those Christmas tree things, like the Angel Tree. It’s always the young kids that are picked. Once you get past the age of 10, it’s like no one really cares about you,” she said. “I had a friend on that tree and I kind of felt like she deserved just as good of a Christmas as her younger sister, who got picked, but my friend never got picked.”

Do little children get picked because they deserve more love? Are toys the most pressing needed?

Chistianity.com’s list of top 5 charities reflects the accepted answer.

Angel Tree, Operation Christmas Child, Make A Wish Foundation, Toys for Tots, My Two Front Teeth.

Most of these foundations offer opportunities to provide underprivileged children with toys for the holidays. I’ve participated in more than one of these and I think they are wonderful organizations. I am very troubled, however, by the role they play in American society.

Those with privilege often think that the problems of poverty can be solved in the same way their problems can be solved – with the swipe of a credit card.

Unfortunately, they can’t. Any one time “sacrifice” of time or money won’t solve anything but the problem of guilt. Should it even solve that? I think not.

If the motive behind charity truly is to help those less fortunate than oneself, doing it once a year is at best a hypocritical band-aid.

Serving dinner on Christmas Eve at the local soup kitchen may get charity checked off your holiday list, but it hardly represents genuine care for those without the privilege of a life-size Nativity scene in their front yard.