By Marcus (smartshanghai.com)
Updated: 2007-12-24 11:35

The drizzling cold and heartless streets of the concrete jungle known as Shanghai were recently warmed up by a Good Samaritan named Rebekah Pothaar and her posse of pulchritudinous pals.

The story is simple: her ayi's husband was injured in a motorcycle accident and needed 43,000rmb to pay for the hospital bills. Rebekah did the math and realized that it would be about 30 years of scrubbing toilets and washing dirty sheets at her ayi's going rate before she could cover the cost. Rebekah decided to put a fundraiser together for the ayi and her husband: "I have gotten to the point in my life where the rose-tinted glasses have been replaced by cheap Armani knock offs."

The first dinner at Haya's restaurant was a success, but only made a small dent into the mountainous bills. A friend from Peep This Entertainment suggested a bigger, splashier affair that would be open to the public and Golddiggers was born. Rebekah's friends all volunteered to help in different ways. Some stripped down to their birthday suits and were photographed and others auctioned themselves or showed off their ability to get down on the dance floor. In the end, the total cost has still not been covered, but Rebekah said with a big smile, "We've definitely taken a big chunk out of her debts and had a lot of fun doing it."

All of this philanthropy and selflessness awoke my inner altruist and I started to think about what I could do to help out those less fortunate. And so, what follows is a by-no-means-definitive list of a few of the humanitarian organizations in and around Shanghai that may help you unlock your inner benefactor. 'Tis the season...

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