Friday, August 23, 2013

My New Charity

In the beginning I started this site in order to supplement the food pantry at church, or be mega prepared for the food drives at school.  Both are wonderful causes but the food pantry is funded (they need odds and ends), and food drives don't necessarily need the products I can score on my budget.  After a lot of looking around I found exactly what I wanted to focus on.

Last Saturday, I met a gentleman named Rusty.  Rusty is apparently a very active person in the community and does on a weekly basis what most of us would either judge, scorn, or ignore all together.  Rusty goes to the tent cities and feeds and clothes the homeless.  A LOT of these homeless are veterans.  Some are not.  All of these people could use a little help.

While talking to Rusty, I found out that personal care items such as deodorant and razors are very much needed, but they do have a lot of shampoo and toothpaste that is donated.  Their actual shortages run along the lines of "camp food" - fresh veg, ramen noodles, pudding cups, crackers, tuna etc. 

So, while I originally started this site in order to push myself to donate and show the power that we all have to help with very little money, my focus has changed a bit.  I will continue to strive to meet my goal, but my focus will be more along the lines of what these people could actually cook in camp and what Rusty tells me he is having a shortage of; not just what I can pick up for free (Make no mistake - I will ALWAYS pick up the free stuff because someone can use it!)

I am so excited to have a real focus, and to maybe make just a few people more comfortable and less hungry on my little budget.  With 76% of Americans still living paycheck-to-paycheck (http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/24/pf/emergency-savings/index.html), I think we should all have a little more compassion for what these people are going through.  Let's stop judging, and scorning, and ignoring the problem and try to help out the people in our own communities.

No comments:

Post a Comment