It might be helpful to point out that in the case of the drowning child, he's right there in front of you and you can see exactly what you are doing. That knowledge evaporates when you start giving to charities. The process can become mindless, as you start sending money to Haiti, or Rwanda, or South Sudan, or wherever. After a while you won't even know what countries your money has gone to, let alone who it has helped, or how.



The knowledge, or lack thereof, is a crucial difference. To understand why this is, we have to understand the classic definition of justice. Justice is the act of giving to a person that which is due him. We know a thing is due a person if, by taking it from him, we do more harm to ourselves than we do to him. For example, if I steal your wallet, I might gain $500, but what I'll lose in character, integrity, and reputation will be far more than that. You, meanwhile, are only out $500. I'm the one who suffered more, therefore the wallet rightly belongs to you.



Now, if I give bread to a starving man, then technically an injustice is being committed, and he's the one who's going to suffer the most-- he wasn't due that bread. And yet, obviously, it is good and right to feed the hungry. How do we resolve this paradox? We resolve it by recognizing that charity is based on love, and love is stronger than justice. Love can commit technical injustices without anyone being hurt. On the contrary, everyone comes out ahead.



Love, though, is why the knowledge element is so crucial. Love requires knowledge of the beloved. You cannot love what you do not know. We can save the drowning child, shelter the dying leper, and give bread to the starving man precisely because we know exactly what we are doing. If we didn't know-- if we were working remotely through a charity, and mindlessly sending them half our paycheck-- then we would not be acting out of love. And if charity isn't done out of love, then it degrades to mere injustice.



If you want to help people, you're going to have to get out there and get your hands dirty (or your shoes, as it were). "Living simply that others may simply live" is short-sighted crypto-materialist claptrap.