Sunday, December 12, 2010

Advent Calendar - 12 December: Charitable/Volunteer Work

This is the 12th in a series of 24 posts for the 2010 Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories.

On the 13th Day of Christmas,
My true love gives to the community
Her time, prayers and compassion.

1) Did your family ever volunteer with a charity such as a soup kitchen, homeless or battered women's shelter during the holidays?

These are difficult questions for the Genea-Scrooge...I don't think my parents ever did this in the 1940-1980 time frame. Charity was not on the radar, other than dropping coins in the Salvation Army kettles.

Our church has hosted a homeless shelter for two weeks twice a year, and the shelter is there this week and next. We donate food items to this, but haven't been physically present at the shelter. Linda went down on Saturday to help set up the shelter cots and bedding.

Linda has been part of the Forest Home Women's Auxiliary for many years - Forest Home is a Christian camp in the San Bernardino mountains that our family attended for many years when the kids were kids. The Auxiliary has run a thrift shop in La Mesa for many years until just recently. We donated many clothing and household items over the years, and Linda worked one day a month at the shop.

Randy has essentially sat on his butt and not done anything of charitable value...sad to say.

2) Or perhaps were your ancestors involved with church groups that assisted others during the holiday?

Once again, I have no idea about this about the ancestors.

3) Were you able to make the holidays special for someone less fortunate? (This question was from three years ago).

The people that I can think of are Linda's great-aunts and second cousins who lived alone in San Francisco during the 1970s and early 1980s. We would go pick them up and bring them to Linda's parents house for Christmas dinner and gift exchange.

Over the years, we have occasionally invited some of the elderly church members with no local family to Christmas dinner with us, and they really appreciate the invitation and invariably are enthusiastic, friendly and fun. Linda was a Deacon at church in past years, and the Deacons usually "adopt" one or more church families, or friends of church families, who won't have Christmas gifts for their children or need help with meals. She is one of two persons who sometimes go with the pastor to serve communion to the shut-in church members.

Needless to say, I almost didn't respond to this prompt, but what the heck - my readers need to know that I'm a Genea-Scrooge sometimes, at least when it concerns the community. Maybe it's genetic, or a learned behavior?

1 comment:

Elizabeth Thomas said...

Randy there are many ways of helping people. I have learned a lot from you and keep a Randy folder so that I can go back and review some of your articles.