This just pisses me off. I have no problem with drinking, and I certainly have no qualms with people supporting a cause, but when someone thinks that drinking in and of itself should support a cause, well, that's where I get annoyed. A co-worker put it like this, and I agree with her: "Call me old fashioned (or of advanced age, or whatever), but isn’t there something obnoxious about saying you don’t want to give time planting trees but will get drunk because you’re going to anyway, and a beer is a beer is a beer? OK, so I haven’t planted trees lately, either, and I do buy from companies that supposedly give a percentage of the proceeds to good causes even if I have to pay a few pennies more because I’m going to buy it anyway, but there’s something about this attitude that doing good shouldn’t inconvenience you or mean changing your lifestyle at all that’s really, really depressing to me."
When I was a kid, I sold stickers to support the Little League and sold candy bars to help out my school. I collected wrappers from soup cans and brought them into school. Whatever happened to collecting UNICEF pennies, or visiting orphanages? Drinking beer? That's not a charitable event.
You might argue that a charity gala is just a glorified way of drinking for a cause, and having attended a couple of them — and more importantly, knowing that those events rarely do much better than break even — I'd say you have a point. You might argue that the beer party is more honest, but the fact is, this is dishonest charity. It's not about charity, it's about getting drunk, it's about trying to get laid. Those may be worthy "causes" by themselves, but they are not charity (even if ugly people... sorry, won't finish that thought).
Do yourselves and the rest of humanity a favor: find a cause you believe in that helps other people, support it, and encourage others to do the same for their causes. Charity is intended to be unselfish. Give it a shot, I think you'll find it's far more buzz worthy than a six pack.
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