Until this summer, Kiva focussed on lending (what in the U.S. are) small amounts of money for third-worlders (pictured at left, a group of farmers in Kyrgyzstan). Kiva was so successful that in December they actually ran out of people to lend money to and had to turn away lenders. So starting in June, the group began allowing American entrepreneurs to solicit money on the site. This has led to a backlash as some Kiva lenders protest that Americans don’t need the money bad enough.

Whatever. There are still plenty of deserving third world people on the kiva.org website who need your money, and will pay it back with interest.

Even though that was more than 20 years ago for me, I still feel a lot of affection for Mission High and the way it allows families to pursue their dreams for their kids. Now, courtesy Mission Local, I just ran across a nonprofit called Mission Graduates which runs a tutoring center and other programs for the neighborhood kids. Because if it’s anything like it was when I was teaching there, a lot of kids need more help than they can get in a class of, say, 30. Check ‘em out.