Just because the jingle bells are five months away is no excuse to stop caring. Frequent flyers have the unique opportunity to donate their miles to worthy causes every day.

And your help is needed — Northwest Airlines’ “KidCares” program is broke.

The program, established in 1999 to provide free air travel for a child, accompanied by one parent or guardian, to obtain needed medical treatment, has exhausted its supply of miles.

The program has helped hundreds of children who could not find the care they needed in their hometowns.

The minimum donation is 5,000 miles — beyond that, donations may be made in 1,000-mile increments.

In other charitable news, Delta Air Lines has announced The Boy Scouts of America as the SkyWish Charity of the Quarter for the third quarter of 2003.

Through Sept. 30, members may donate miles to The Boy Scouts of America via SkyWish. There is a 5,000-mile minimum donation, and Delta will boost each donation by adding and extra 1,000 miles for every 5,000 miles contributed.

Readers are encouraged to visit http://www.miledonor.com, an online clearinghouse of news and information about charitable donations of miles. You can find out which charities your favorite program supports, follow links to specific airline charities, check out the individual need requests of donation-seekers, and even make a request for help yourself.