Very admirable for these Woodside children to raise money for the Kenyans' wells, but, why not, instead, donate your time and money to some cause here in your own country. God knows the United States could use help in lots of areas...how about focusing on the children in the ghettos? Or, the hungry? Or, the homeless? Or, the lack of affordable housing for seniors and others less well-off? Just sayin'

Way to be a buzzkill, pearl.

This isn't a zero-sum game we're talking about. And by the way, what have YOU done to raise funds for the causes you mentioned? Anything? Anything at all?

That's alright..... when I first glanced at the title, I thought I read it as a Trump investigation in Kenya searching for birth certificates........

way to go, WES kids!

Stop the Trolls:

Though I don't talk about it, I support our local Second Harvest Food Bank, our local animal shelter, our local VA hospital library, a scholarship fund started by the family of one of our local troops KIA while deployed in Afghanistan, and have been sending care packages to our deployed troops since 2004. I also regularly write to our elected officials urging them to first focus their attention on people and problems here at home.

I have the same question for billionaires who support causes in third world countries instead of first supporting causes right here in the United States.

Wonderful for you, pearl. So you actually walk the walk.

But your nativist tone is offputting. Aiding people overseas is just as worthy of recognition and praise as is aiding those in this country. People like you need to recognize that, once and for all.

I'm going to be rather off-putting so here goes:

Supporting poor and afflicted people you'll never meet in far-flung lands in the Left's idealistic obsession as the Right is overly concerned with the plight of the Unborn. Both are causes that you can write an entire story around that have everything to do with core values and clear visions of what's right and wrong, but nothing to do with the face-to-face empathy with the people around you. Both are abstractions of an ideal, but both should be tempered by the real experience of helping and loving the stranger in our midsts, not the random face on TV.

So in a way, I'm with Pearl. We foster and tutor refugees from Congo here in Menlo Park, but not out of a wider 'internationalist' vision of how awful life is over there, but because we can look in the face of someone from outside the US trying to make their way through subsidized housing in San Jose and help them.

Help the person next to you and you'll help all of humanity.

As a Taxpayer's Advocate, it is refreshing to see charitable efforts which do not involve government funding. Voluntary giving is the key.

I will not soon forget the day St. Anthony de Padua Dining Room first dipped into the public trough when they were enticed to apply for a grant from the property tax funded Sequoia Healthcare District on who's Board I have served for 13 years. See:Web Link This link also mentions Second Harvest Food Bank as a recipient of property tax dollars from the Sequoia Healthcare District.

In 2011. St. Anthony's Donations page on it's website stated:
"Each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver"(2 Cor.9:7)"
I urge all of you to do just that. Willingly.

I applaud pearl for doing that.

Woodside students, enjoy your walk!

It's important that we support projects that speak to our hearts. What is totally out-of-line (Pearl) is to criticize someone else's giving. Americans are incredibly generous people and we need to be. We have more than almost everyone else. Who is to say one person's need should take priority over the needs of another. I have spent much time in Kenya. What is different about their poverty is that there are virtually no safety nets, such as Second Harvest and the other agencies mentioned. It is vital that we support them all!