Seasons Greetings Brothers and Sisters. For those of you out there wanting to make a real difference in someones life this holiday season, put your wallet away and get your work clothes on and volunteer somewhere, preferably at a VA or homeless shelter. The day before Thanksgiving I put some hours in at my local VFW helping to get the meals ready that will feed all the local Vets that have no family or nowhere else to go. Those meals aren't just nutritional sustenance but they also satisfy a social hunger and offer a rare opportunity for human interaction that may only come once or twice a year at an event like that.
I am aware that giving money to a charity around Christmas time is a long running tradition. The Salvation Army bell ringers are at every Wal-Mart and major retailers making it easy to put some cash in and tell yourself you did your part to help. I also know that a lot of donations are given during the holidays because it is the end of the year and people are looking for all the deductions they can get on their taxes. If this is the route you decide to take at least do research on the 501c3 filings and look at how much of each dollar actually makes it to the cause. A lot of the big ones average under ten cents of every dollar donated going to the specified cause. The children's wish network raises over 5 million a year in the name of sick and dying kids and 3cents of a dollar goes to helping kids. The rest pays salaries and other discreet expenses they dont want you to know about like private planes, club memberships and things like that.
They say time is money and if you really want your money to be used the way you see best then give your time and make the biggest difference you possibly can with it. In 2010 I was hospitalized for three months in a specialized hospital hours away from my home. My family could only come to visit every other week , if i was lucky. If it wasn't for the volunteers that came by to visit i would have lost my mind. Along with the volunteers were my nurses that would stay an hour or so after their shift to spend time with me and keep me company. This was at Tampa General Hospital. I can not say enough good things about the staff that treated me. They were amazing in so many ways. SOCOM is also stationed nearby and occasionally Army SF Medics and Navy SEAL Corpsman will do training there. The group that was there at the time was told that there was a severely injured Marine combat vet getting treatment and they made sure to do motivational visits whenever possible. My point of all this is that it was people giving their time that made a positive impact and lasting impression during my recovery. Not may people have enough money to make the kind of difference that some honest time can make.
I dont know of any VA , hospital or homeless shelter that turns away people that want to volunteer. There are all kinds of ways to help by giving time. Even just going to a nursing home and talking to a resident that hasnt had meaningful human contact in a while could change that persons outlook on life and attitude. If you like this idea just call the local VA of google something like" Where to volunteer near me". Even just a few hours one day on the weekend can make a difference in someones life. you never know, you might even like the difference it makes in your life.
I push to help the Vets but I am also big on helping the kids. This may be for a more experienced and dedicated volunteer though. Usually with the kids there is (or should be) and background check or vetting process.
Merry Christmas , Happy Hanukkah and Happy New Year. Semper Steem
