A Good Deed.

I have to wonder how authentic this photo is. I suspect it's staged, but I 'get the message' it conveys.
We should all be a little more aware of the needs of others. We should give a helping hand when we can.
But in all honesty, I don't do it enough. I get phone calls nearly daily from organizations that help people asking for donations. I have people knocking at my door doing the same thing. I see advertizement on TV asking for help, and my mailbox are even more cries for help. Sometimes when I'm out I have encounters with vagrants begging for money. I rarely help. I have little and what I do have I prorvide to my children when they are in need.
 
Lois, I too felt guilty about all the calls, letters, and the poor on so many street corners. But we are not far ahead the people in so much need. I finally contacted our local food bank, and asked them for their ideas. We volunteer some time collecting food for distribution. When we can afford the money, we buy food vouchers that we can hand out to people on the streets. You can feed a person for about 50 cents.
You would be surprised at how many don't want, and refuse to take the vouchers. They want money.
I am on a list at our local grade school for a telephone tutoring program that has seniors as the tutors.
Time I have, much more than money.
 
Ina said:
Lois, I too felt guilty about all the calls, letters, and the poor on so many street corners. But we are not far ahead the people in so much need. I finally contacted our local food bank, and asked them for their ideas. We volunteer some time collecting food for distribution. When we can afford the money, we buy food vouchers that we can hand out to people on the streets. You can feed a person for about 50 cents.
You would be surprised at how many don't want, and refuse to take the vouchers. They want money.
I am on a list at our local grade school for a telephone tutoring program that has seniors as the tutors.
Time I have, much more than money.
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You're on the right track, Ina. Bless you.

Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee
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It's something that we all need to remember when we feel that we are not doing enough. No single person can solve a huge problem like poverty but we can all play a part in helping to reduce the impact, according to our means and capability.
 
I don't feel guilty at all, I give if and when I feel there is a need and I want to. One thing that's so annoying is to give to an organization, then become bombarded with notice after notice, telling you to give more money. Then, after adding to the trash in your mail every couple of months, they 'warn' you that you better give now, or they will not continue your 'membership'...a membership you never signed up for, but the fact that you were caring enough to make a contribution in the past makes you their target.

I don't feel bad about not giving to street beggars and panhandlers, too many of them have proven to be con artists and just out for the money. Instead of getting a real job, they make more with a cardboard sign on a street corner for 6 hours a day. They give the real homeless folks a bad name.

I have many times offered people assistance when they needed it, in many different ways. It comes natural to me to help people out, and I do so without thought. People take advantage when it comes to cash donations, and when or where I donate is strictly up to me. Sometimes their phone calls and mailings are nothing but organized bullying, IMO.
 
Sea, I agree with you 100%. I hate the sale pitches, and the letters go straight in the trash.
But I was seeing children struggling in the local school. Many of them were not getting enough to eat. That had to effect their ability to even think. Many of their families had only one income, and their English poor if they spoke it at all.
I have the time, and it keeps me from just falling into dark hole.
What I felt guilty about was being totally self centered, and not seeing there was something I can do to help them, and myself.
These are things I can do, and I admit that retirement doesn't always set well with me.
 
I usually don't give to people begging on the street, with one exception. Some of the people standing, pretty dangerously, in traffic intersections, and begging for money, are obviously amputees, hobbling with their crutches from one car to another. It would be pretty hard to fake that, with their prosthetic legs visible. I think how hard that must be for the truly disabled, watching car after car going by without stopping. So I usually give them a dollar or two, if I'm stopped for a light anyway.

The most annoying pitch for funds was well-meaning, but pretty stupid. The local firefighters were raising money to fight some disease, I forget which one. (Cystic fibrosis, maybe.) They were dodging cars at an intersection, running from car to car with their buckets, cheerfully asking for donations. They created a diversion and were putting themselves and everyone else at risk. It seemed to me that they of all people should have known better. Surely there are better means of fund raising than that!
 
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