It’s Giving Tuesday

If you are reading this you probably don’t live under a rock, therefore you might already know it’s Giving Tuesday. In case you don’t know, let me help you. Today is a day where people are encouraged to give to their favorite charities and non-profits. It could be a school, a Food Bank, an organization that helps homeless people, one that helps animals, the list is endless.

If you are lucky enough to have dinner tonight and a warm bed to sleep in and a dog to snuggle with and can read and comprehend a book you probably had someone in your life who helped you get where you are. None of us grow up with out the encouragement of some person. It might have been your parents, a teacher, a grandmother, a friend at church, or all those people.

If you had many people who encouraged you, you were lucky. If you were born into a family which did not worry about buying you new sneakers when you out grew your last ones, you were lucky. Now some people say they got where they are by their own hard work. I am not discounting hard work, but no one gets places alone and those who grew up with privilege need to understand that it was just luck that they were born into that family.

For many people non-profits fill the gaps for people who are just not as lucky. They might be as smart as you and as hard working as you, but they might have grown up in a town with a school that was not as good as yours, or they might have had a parent who lost a job at a bad time, or worse, lost the parent.

Wherever you are now, do you have something or someone to be thankful for? If so it might be a good day to donate to a non-profit in that person’s honor as a way of thanking them for all they did for you. Or give because you are thankful for the luck you had and want to pay it forward so someone else might be helped right at a time they need it.

Let’s not waste the potential we have in our own communities because a child is hungry and can’t concentrate on learning. Or let’s try and alleviate the burden someone else has to carry because it is the right thing to do. Give today. It doesn’t matter where, you pick something that means something to you. If you can, give again tomorrow. It doesn’t have to be money. Give again the next day. I promise you it will make your life happier. You may never know exactly who is helped by your giving, but they will always be grateful to you. We all need help at sometime.