Giving

So often in the blogosphere I read about supporting local agriculture and local businesses to build stronger communities. I’ve written about it and I’ve tried to do my best to move that direction in many ways. While eating local and shopping local are both great ways to help build stronger communities and have a lot of merit on their own, what I’d like to bring up, with Thanksgiving just around the corner, is what we can do not necessarily with our dollars, but with our time.

My family and I have made a tradition over the last 6 or 8 yrs to spend every other Thanksgiving Day at a local shelter helping to distribute and SERVE meals to many of the areas less fortunate. I emphasize the word serve for a reason; not just that we are physically serving food and hot drinks, we are serving our fellow man. Most of us have had a time in our lives, either because of circumstances or bad decisions, when we hit a rough patch, sometimes it’s a very rough patch and we've been able to get by because of anothers time and help. When we first decided to begin this tradition, we were feeling particularly thankful, having just come through a particularly rough period in our early relationship, one where we certainly had received help from others.

There are a lot of things that we can do to help others. Spend time at a shelter serving food, help a widow fix things around the house, mow a lawn for an elderly couple or just make a dinner for a neighbor that has had a health problem. These are things that we've done, but there are so many other things. I'd like to hear from you about the things that you have done, or what you will be doing as this time of thanks is upon us. If you have nothing planned, then I would ask that you perhaps take a look at what you could do. Maybe spend some time at a shelter, or fix a meal for a less fortunate family, whatever.

For those of you reading who blog as well, take a minute to share your service with others as I am and help me to motivate them to get out and SERVE. Let's try to add this to our community building efforts.
P~