Giving Machines are running with the idea of doing good

Last updated on: December 1, 2025 at 7:59 pm by Cara Meredith

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Giving Machines are running with the idea of doing good 2025-12-01T19:59:22-07:00 Cara Meredith

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Do you live in Bakersfield, San Clemente, Los Angeles, or Fresno, California? Do you call Vancouver, British Columbia, Spokane, Washington, or Rexburg, Idaho home?

As a Patheos writer, I’m so excited to tell you about Giving Machines, which helps all of our neighbors, both locally and globally.

According to this map, Giving Machines exist in 125 cities in 13 countries and six continents, with new Giving Machines in 25 cities around the world, including the six I named above.

Exciting to all of this is that this is the first holiday season Giving Machines will be in South America, benefitting our friends and neighbors down there as well. As the LDS church promotes, for the 9th holiday season in a row, charitable giving is as simple as buying a soda or a candy bar (because we know our good LDS brothers and sisters aren’t going for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine).

Whoever you are, wherever you are, in less than a minute, those of us who want to do good in and for this world can use the vending-machine-like Giving Machines to purchase items ranging from chickens and goats, blankets, hygiene kits, solar lamps, a hot meal for someone in need, polio vaccines, school desks, and even a community well.

Y’all, they’re taking the World Vision concept of gift-giving and running with it, doing good, one vending machine-like apparatus at a time.

But the other cool thing is that each city’s Giving Machines contain items for “purchase” from a host of international charity partners, including UNICEF, American Red Cross, Care, WaterAid, and others, as well as from hometown charity partners.

That means you get to choose whether you’d like to help your neighbor who lives just down the street or your neighbor who lives halfway around the world.

I think it’s an utterly brilliant concept and only wish that the closest Giving Machine wasn’t a loathsome 66.98 miles away from the city I call home.

So, what do you do and how do you do it? It’s simple!

1️⃣ Stop by one of our Giving Machines. (Again, visit this map)

2️⃣ Choose how you want to make a difference—whether it’s feeding a hungry family, helping heal seals, and so much more!

3️⃣ Swipe your card, and that’s it!

I may not call the Church of Jesus Christ home, but knowing that 100% of donations goes to help those in need (and not to fund the church) means that I know my donation can and will make a difference.

That’s why I’m spreading the word—so that I can make a bigger difference with my readers here on Patheos and on other spaces of the Internet.

I should also mention, if you’re like me and you happen to live in a city that doesn’t yet have a Giving Machine, you can still get involved by organizing a Light the World service project locally. Here are a bunch of ideas to get you (and me!) started in that realm.

That’s it for now! If you have more questions, head over to the Giving Machines website. They’ve got all the answers.

Happy holidays!

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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

Giving Machines

About Cara Meredith

Cara Meredith is a writer, speaker, and editor who writes at the intersection of spirituality and culture. A former high school English teacher and nonprofit outreach director, her writing has appeared in numerous print and online publications. The author of Church Camp (Broadleaf) and The Color Of Life (Zondervan), she holds a Masters of Theology and lives in Oakland, California with her family. You can read more about the author here.

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