Walking for Charity

I never thought about charitable walk-a-thons, bike-a-thons and other assorted a-thons from this perspective but I think he has a point.

From the NYT...

It’s a peculiar institution, this walking to raise money...

What I saw that morning in Boston was a resource diverted from its true purpose. Imagine those 210,000 man-hours (42,000 times a five-hour walk) put into direct service to benefit the poor. Think of the houses that might be built, roofs repaired, gardens planted and harvested, public spaces improved, and meals delivered to shut-ins. (And add in the efforts of the 2,000 volunteers that day and the contributions of 50,000 donors.) Now multiply that by the millions of man-hours that are represented by such events in cities across the nation, from Los Angeles to Louisville, Ky., from Austin, Tex., to Grand Rapids, Mich.

In the charitable ritual that has evolved, two sides expend energy, but only the sponsors’ efforts directly aid the poor. The others’ is pure sweat equity that goes nowhere but down the necks of the participants. Consider, too, the public resources expended: the rescue squads and medics along the way, the police sealing off urban arteries, the snarling of traffic. We tie our cities in knots. Enduring such inconvenience is what each of us gives to the cause.

I do not question the sincerity of the participants, but in these mass mobilizations I see many lost opportunity costs.

Perhaps a better model is a community improvement-a-thon in which participant sponsors contribute to a charity based not on number of miles walked but on the number of trees plants, homeless fed, pounds of trash removed from city streets, etc. etc.