Charity, in my mind, starts from very basic things - and is a very simple thing to do, actually. It all stems from having very basic courtesy and empathy for other human beings, and doesn’t require one to join Doctors Without Borders or go volunteering in a less developed country halfway across the world.

What do I mean? If everyone was charitable to their family and friends around them, if we just did the tangible things we could to better the lives of our brethren, people wouldn’t need to go volunteering halfway across the world on some large-scale charity mission half as often.

Be good to your parents, and take care of them - otherwise some charitable stranger in an old folk’s home will someday have to. Don’t haphazardly throw litter on the floor when you’re out on the streets - that way road cleaners won’t have to pick it up, right? You get what I mean?

I’m not saying that large-scale, high profile charitable acts are a bad thing; no, in fact in many cases, they are very necessary and save many, many lives. What I am saying is that when we try to do good, sometimes we forget about the little, simple courtesies that we can do for people closer to us - ironically, people whose lives we can directly impact most with our actions.

Why fly to Africa to help the poor and sick when you can walk to your local mission and do the same? The same sick, the same dying, the same homeless. Toronto is filled with thousands of homeless people. So are other great metropolitan cities like New York, London and the like. They all could use a little help, too.

There are many factors, mainly economical and political reasons, why we continue to chose to help the poor and the suffering of another country rather than those close to us. On a more personal level, it is far easier for many people to donate $100 in helping some faraway AIDS victims than it is to give a $0.25 coin to a homeless man on the sidewalk, for a very simple reason: the NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) rule.

A relevant example of this occurred over the last year in The Beaches, one of Toronto’s posher and “classier” neighborhoods. The residents of The Beaches were lauded when they brought forward a charitable movement where homeless people would be given free food and shelter in local churches. However, when one such shelter was planned to be set up in The Beaches itself, the residents vehemently resisted, protesting strongly against it.

For a more obvious example, look at the USA’s involvement in the Middle East. Billions of dollars have gone into rebuilding Iraq (Waitaminute… why did it need to be rebuilt in the first place?), yet hulking highway bridges in the US are crumbling from disrepair. Katrina funds, collected over the years from millions of well-meaning donors and organizations, mysteriously don’t seem to be translating to much: New Orleans is still pretty much in shambles, a shadow of what it once was. Think about it: take every dollar spent on the Green Zone in Iraq and imagine it put into actually rebuilding New Orleans: the people there would be much, much better off than how they are now.

To sum my point up: charity then, is apparently a lot easier to perform the farther away one is from the person being helped.

Which is why a man like the late Ed Mirvish is so special, and so great. To those who are unfamiliar with “Honest” Ed, Mr. Mirvish was the owner of a huge discount store in Toronto (very similar to Mustafa’s in Singapore), as well as being responsible for nearly singlehandedly revitalizing the theatrical industry in Toronto. A true man of the people, Honest Ed showed that charity is as simple as loving those who are around you, and helping them in whatever simple means available to you. He didn’t have to go jet-setting across the world to help people; Honest Ed helped the people he could see and touch. The thousands of free turkeys he’s personally given out every Christmas to anyone who’d line up for them is just one example of Honest Ed’s charity. Honest Ed is just one of many good examples of how doing the simple things in our power to help our neighbours can very tangibly better their lives.

I write this not to judge, nor to dissuade or criticize. I merely am telling all who happen to read this, myself included when I reflect upon this in the future, to look closer to us when trying to do something good for someone else, because it’s a heck of a lot harder than to just dump $100 into some charity box, feel good about ourselves and think we’ve done a great deal of good by our sacrifice.

Instead, maybe we should try and just start by simply being considerate and courteous to our neighbours, our housemates, our parents and our friends… or, before we know it, in a generation or two, some humanitarian group from halfway across the world is going to have to waltz into our homes to help us.