Make donations to charity a part of every day life — not only on holidays
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, opportunities for service and donations multiply.
In the Palouse Empire Mall and other places around Moscow, giving trees and Toys for Tots boxes encourage community members to be charitable.
Shortly after school starts in the spring, a food bank on the University of Idaho campus will allow students greater access to food in times of need, but it will also provide a greater responsibility for students to keep it running.
Vandals have a history of food donations — in 2010, Idaho held a “Beat BSU” food drive the week of the rivalry game. Though the football contest went south, Idaho dominated the food drive, raising 34,500 pounds of food to Boise State’s 623 pounds.
Although popular knowledge gives him a bad name, don’t be afraid to follow the example of Ebenezer Scrooge.
In the beginning of Charles Dickens’ “Christmas Carol,” Scrooge was a crotchety miser who only grudgingly allowed his employees Christmas day off.
After the visits of the three ghosts — revealing to Scrooge how his selfish ways have hurt the people around him –Scrooge’s magnanimity manifests itself as he gives gifts to his abused, underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit and others.
During the last ghostly visit, Scrooge promises, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it (there) all the year.”
Dickens wrote, “He became as good a friend, as good a master and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town or borough in the whole world.”
The lesson of “A Christmas Carol” is expressed in the closing paragraph: “And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us.”
Dickens makes it clear that Scrooge kept Christmas alive by giving of his vast wealth to the poor and needy.
Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, don’t confine the giving spirit to the holidays. Carry it with you every day. After all, stomachs go hungry in July just as often as they do in December.
–KC