Helping Others For The Holidays

Twice a year, our household participates in a purge.
Spring cleaning and autumn’s onset launch a review of clothing, toys, books, DVDs, CDs, kitchen supplies and canned goods to determine what can go. Clay, Troy and I each get a bin and we work our way through the house.

Nice but ill-fitting clothes, outgrown toys, books we won’t read, old magazines – you get the idea. We store the spring collection, combining it with what we assemble in the fall, and donate our “gently used items” to a variety of worthy causes and try to spread the love.

The neighborhood public elementary school receives children’s books and any extra office supplies; Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee gets the clothes; the Salvation Army gets toys and any small kitchen appliances; Second Harvest receives canned goods and other prepared foods. We take the magazines to hospitals for volunteers to offer to patients and their visitors.

Each year, we learn to part with more. We devote one weekend to sorting and one weekend – or weekday afternoon – to delivering the donations as a family, and we go out to dinner when we’re through.

With all the grim financial news this year, we feel doubly blessed. Clay still has his job, though he’s often away from home on the road; and I’m still working at our church as a part-time administrator.  We have health insurance through Clay’s job. So many families are hurting that we’ve decided on low-key Christmas with simple gifts and not a lot of extras.

The holidays also give us more opportunity to reach out. Two years ago we added Ms. Cheap’s Penny Drive, which benefits Second Harvest, to our rituals and we collect pennies in old cookie tins. This year, we will add one more effort and adopt at least one child and one senior through Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program.

Through it, those who would get little or nothing during the holidays are matched with individuals, families and companies, which provide personalized gifts and necessities. I love that Angel Tree, a high-profile national program, started right here in Nashville!

But I love the idea of helping, as a family, a specific person in our own community even more.

Find the answer to this and all your questions about helping others from Amanda Grieves of The Salvation Army Nashville Area Command.

All the above information has been reviewed by this week’s expert.