Soothing Sunday: Giving Back

In last week's Soothing Sunday, I mentioned that a good way to counteract some anxiety is to think of something you are grateful for, or to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Both of those things led me to start thinking more about ways to try to give back.

Aside from donating money to causes I like and believe in, I have not done much to give back during my adult life. I have never had a regular volunteer appointment, and I have not gone on mission trips. So please know that this post will not be preachy! Because I have nothing to preach about when it comes to giving back. I just want to brainstorm ways to give back and encourage both you and myself to try to give back more.

Why We Give Back

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten
that we belong to each other." -Mother Teresa

I believe the reason we volunteer, donate money, and share goods with others is because we are all created by God, and therefore, we are all family. So we have a responsibility for others: we belong to each other, as Mother Teresa has said.

Some of the Easiest Ways to Give Back

• Donate Food: Our community's food pantry has been serving more people than usual because of the pandemic. Perhaps yours is too. Looking through your own pantry for non-perishable food items and running them over to your community food pantry is a great way to start.
• Donate Professional Clothes: There is a half-way house not too far from our home. They provide support to men who have recently left prison and are beginning to reenter society. They accept donations of adult men's clothes: particularly any business clothing that the men can wear for job interviews. If you have any suits or collared shirts that perhaps don't fit anymore, maybe you could share those with a similar organization near you.
• Alternate Ways to Recycle: Rather than using the city's recycling service, we have taken our bottles and cans to a local Habitat for Humanity which accepts the recycled goods and redeems them for some funds to support Habitat for Humanity. In the town where I was raised, the Boy Scouts would collect aluminum cans after church services and redeem the cans to raise money for their organization too. Anything like this takes pretty minimal legwork and can create a little money for a worthy cause.
• Contribute Money: This is not remotely creative. But it's important to remember how far money can go with some organizations. For instance, our local community pantry says that $1 can provide 4 pounds of food. So where I'd spend $3 on a latte, I could easily donate it online and the community pantry could turn that into 12 pounds of food for needy people in my area. So an amount that might seem small to me might make a big difference to someone else.

More Creative Ways to Give Back

I wanted to start off by listing some minimal-effort ways to help out your community so that everyone knows that giving back can be for anyone. But if you have more time available, or are hoping to make a larger sacrifice to help others, here are some additional ways:

• Clean Up Your Neighborhood: If you've noticed gum wrappers or empty cans along the streets in your area, you could spend an afternoon with a trash bag and some rubber gloves cleaning up your neighborhood.
• Volunteer to Teach Something: Teach anything! You could teach Sunday School at your church; you could teach civics to new immigrants to the United States to help them pass their citizenship test; you could help young kids with their reading after school; if you're qualified, you could volunteer to teach people how to do their taxes; you could teach a nonprofit how to file the required incorporation paperwork to the State. Even just teaching your neighbor how to throw a baseball.
• CASA: CASA is a nationwide network of 'court-appointed special advocates' who help children in the foster system. Especially during the pandemic, the foster system has been upended in jurisdictions around the country. By volunteering to serve as a CASA, you do not need to become a foster parent if that would be too demanding for you. But you could be an additional piece in the puzzle to help make sure that a child is properly taken care of.

Make Giving Back a Vocation

Perhaps there is a cause that you want to make your vocation! That would be wonderful! 

• Apply to be a full-time employee for an organization doing work you respect.
• Begin the paperwork to become a foster or adoptive parent.
• Start an organization to do work you believe in!
• Contact the local animal shelter to see if you can foster stray cats or dogs.

Your Turn:

Have you provided services to organizations in the past? Do you have creative and simple ways to help out? Please note any of them in the comments!

Today's Delights:

Homemade pizza from my husband!

• We are getting even more new snow today! It is falling so gently, and it looks so beautiful.
• Yesterday, my husband made homemade pizza, and it was delicious!
• Tomorrow, we have the day off, so it's another great three-day weekend.

Look for something delightful! -A