Friendly dollars
By Ellen Goodman, 12/22/2002
At first the letters just trickled in to the United Nations Population Fund. A dollar here, five dollars there. It was enough to buy a few birthing kits or cure one 14-year-old mother of the silent plague of fistula.
Of course it didn’t begin to make up for the $34 million that the Bush administration denied the international family planning group. But the trickle didn’t stop either. It grew all fall until an astonished woman at the UNFPA decided to invest in an electronic letter opener.
[…]
This is an idea that comes with an address, a place where we can offer aid as well as dissent, a dollar as well as a message of connection to the women of the world:
220 E. 42nd St.
New York, NY 10017
Note: I have asked Ms. Goodman for permission to reprint the entire column; it’s disappeared into the Boston Globe’s premium archives. I haven’t had a response yet. If I get a positive reply, I’ll post it.
I hope you hear from her. I would like to read her column…
As of the date of the column the dollars received had exceeded $150,000.