think a little more of others

March 31, 2010
The building next door to the SRO where I am staying is called The Living Room. It is a drop-in facility for clients with Mental Health issues. The Living Room is run as non-profit and provides day programs, counseling, meals, clothes, furniture, advocacy and pretty much anything else you can imagine. When I was passing by the other day I noticed a poster in the window. The poster announced that the Living Room will be holding fundraising car washes over the summer. No surprise there… non-profits are all about the fundraising. The surprise is that proceeds from these fundraisers will be going to NETS FOR AFRICA…. a program which provides mosquito netting to help reduce malaria.
When I was a little girl my granny always told me, “you don’t got to look too far to find someone worse off then you.” It was great advice, anytime I started feeling hard done by… I’d take a look at what others have to deal with and be thankful for all the good things I have. Perhaps the most important of which is my granny’s good advice LOL.
So a group of people in Vancouver, who have much to struggle with, could have voted to put those funds to a new foosball table or a group trip to a Canucks game. But NO instead they thought about people half a world away, who are locked in a different kind of struggle. Perhaps it is as Aristotle said, that all things being equal it is man’s preferred nature to do good.