CHARITY WATCH : You’re No Millionaire?

The holiday season is a traditional time for charitable giving and sharing. But many household budgets are tight this year--and not everyone can be Walter H. Annenberg, who recently announced a grant of half a billion dollars for schools.

The spirit of goodwill, however, need not go unheeded. We have 10 practical suggestions for personal acts of charity that can continue throughout the year:

1. Adopt a family through programs offered by your employer or local charities.

2. Help at schools hurt by budget cutbacks. Talk to students about your area of expertise. Help supervise kids during lunch or after school.

3. Do something for your neighborhood at the local library, museum or senior citizen center.

4. Gifts need not be new. What about that personal computer that has become obsolete in your eyes but is perfectly useful to a school or nonprofit group?

5. Stretch the dollars you do give by finding out whether your employer has a matching-gift program.

6. Add to the pantries of food drives conducted by churches and other nonprofit organizations.

7. Workers are always needed to stock food warehouses, feed the homeless or deliver meals to shut-ins.

8. Support your local firefighters, who did such a fine job in the recent wildfires.

9. Get involved on a long-term basis in some grass-roots movement that you believe in.

10. If you’re able to donate to a charity but can’t shake a Scrooge-like tendency, think tax deduction, tax deduction when writing that check.