Charity donation bins in Windsor and Essex County are being used as garbage dumps.

The St. Vincent de Paul society has issued a call to stop the illegal dumping at its 35 bins. It’s a problem that costs the charity more than $5,000 last year.

General manager Alexis Strahl said she often finds — and is grateful for — usable donations. But she also finds garbage in the bins.

Read the full article here.

Our founding member, StandardAutoWreckers.com was a sponsor (and supplier of junk cars) for the Monster Jam Tour – Toronto and we got a little brand promotion ourselves!!!

This junk car was turned into a mini playground in Ireland.

Canadians gave more to charity in 2010, showing signs that philanthropic giving is rebounding after the last two years of recession.

Statistics Canada data released Monday show that tax filers claimed just under $8.3-billion in 2010, up 6.5 per cent from 2009. At the same time, the number of donors increased 2.2 per cent to just over 5.7 million Canadians.

While the percentage of Canadians claiming donations has been steadily dropping since 1997, the figure also climbed back slightly to 23.4 per up from the all-time low of 23.1 per cent.

The national median donation was $260 in 2010, which was also $10 more than the median in 2009.

Read the full article here.

Tana Silverland, a Brit who relocated to Canada in 2010, is cycling to communities across the country to raise awareness sand money for SOS Children’s Villages. She stayed in Goderich the weekend of Oct. 21-22 and headed to Exeter, Sarnia, London on her tricycle.

When Tana Silverland landed in Canada in June 2010 from the United Kingdom, she immediately set out on a cross-country odyssey to visit as many Canadian communities as possible.

Read the full article here.

Canadian pop singer Nelly Furtado says she is donating the $1 million she earned to perform for members of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s family to the Free the Children charity.

Furtado said in February she would donate the money from a 2007 show in Italy for members of Gadhafi’s family.

She made this latest announcement Tuesday at a youth empowerment day organized by Canadian co-founders of Free the Children.

Read the full article here.

2.7 million Canadians struggle to get enough to eat each year, 37% of which are children. Hunger has become a reality for too many Canadians. No Canadian should go hungry. Come out to support this year’s Kamel Cup Charity event, with Suresh Joachim, to help fight hunger in our local community.  Event sponsored by our partners at Standard Auto Wreckers

The world record challenge started today at 2pm and here is the video!

A group in Alberta is preparing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for charity!

The first successful climb of Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro in 1889 took six weeks.

Italian Bruno Brunod literally ran to the top in five hours, 38 minutes and 20 seconds in 2001. Native guide Simon Mtuy made it up and back in eight hours and 27 minutes in 2004.

Gretta and Garnet Cummings aren’t out to set any records. They just want to reach the top, a trek of 25 to 30 kilometres one way. If all goes according to plan — Garnet’s artificial left hip and right knee hold out, and altitude sickness doesn’t stop them — the Edmonton couple will be standing on the snow-capped summit of the world’s tallest free-standing volcano and the highest point of Africa 5,895 metres (19,344 feet) above sea level on Aug. 17, seven days after starting the climb, slightly longer than the five or six days it takes the average climber.

Read the full article here.

Love this simple illustration on why it is better for you to go green.

We interviewed David Gold at Standard Auto Wreckers about his recent Tire Take Back Event and it appears the event was a smashing (excuse the pun) amazing success!  David says, “Things got off to a great start with people lined up even before we opened at 8am on Friday.  Then on Saturday we had a steady flow of people dropping off as few as two tires and as many as a dozen at-a-time.  We would like to extend our heart-felt thanks to everyone that helped make this event such a great success!”

Standard Auto Wreckers in Toronto, Ontario in partnership with OARA (Ontario Automotive Recyclers Assosciation) will be participating in the collection of used tires in the greater Toronto area.  All tire fees associated with each tire dropped off will be donated by participating members to The Sunshine Foundation of Canada.  OARA will then match the donation made from all tires collected.

Keep an eye out for next years event!!