Happy Easter

April 4, 2010
Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend. Lots of together time with family and friends, as it should be. I didn’t track down any turkey dinners, although I’m sure there were some out there. Given the high level of community support for the homeless in DTES, it would be unlikely to see them completely forgotten on the holidays. Holidays are a great opportunity for people to express their sense compassion. Christmas is really good for that. My favourite program is “adopt a family”. An individual or organization is assigned a family in need… the adopters are given names and ages of the adoptee family members and the family is provided with gifts and groceries appropriate to their needs. Excellent program as far as it goes. What about the rest of the year?
Permit me to wax nostalgic for a few moments. When I was growing up we were a have not family. An organization called The Travelers launched an, adopt a family program. Each of the member families adopted a needy family, whom they took care of year round. Christmas gifts and a hamper, but also birthday gifts and hampers for Thanksgiving and Easter (chocolate bunnies included). There are probably a hundred liability and privacy issues preventing such relationships these days. But the joy of that type of program was that the giver knew exactly where his money is going. With so many charities 60% – 80% of your contribution goes to administration and fundraising. Drop a toonie in some hobo’s hat and 100% of your donation has gone toward making one person’s day a little easier LOL.
I guess what I want to say here is holidays are great… but our souls need to give every day. Stepping outside of oneself seems to feed something inside oneself. How you choose to give isn’t that important… money or time whatever works for you. Every single day, do something, anything for someone else, stranger or friend it doesn’t matter. Give joy to your heart by giving to the world.