I have my own dogs that need to be fed expensive Petco food and groomed, which costs hundreds of dollars every year.

I don’t know if anyone has noticed yet, but being a broke college student can be difficult.

This is why I have a hard time giving to charity, especially when I don’t know where my money is going.

Those charity commercials are the bane of my TV-watching existence.

While watching an inappropriate episode of my favorite show, Sarah McLachlan and her depressing dogs just decide to make an appearance.

Even worse, when the old man who looks like Santa Claus comes out of the blue and starts talking to me about how I can “adopt” these hungry and abandoned children in faraway countries he never names.

Who am I — Angelina Jolie? In the words of Sweet Brown, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”

There are other ways to give back. Charity can stem from any situation, whether it be donating prom dresses, personally partnering with organizations to raise money or buying the neighborhood transient a meal and asking them how their day is going.

It seems as though some organizations forget that people are, well, people. In that, people forget that they can help others just by donating time.

Donating to charity is something I see as a last resort.

If I must give, I choose to make the experience as human as possible.

It is just so much more satisfying to help someone strive when you can see the contribution you are making.

Plus, I’m pretty sure TV Santa is using all those starving children funds to fuel his cookie addiction.

Prin Mayowa can be reached at [email protected] or @PrinSupreme on Twitter.com.