Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Happy Canada Day and 4th of July - Now is the time to give.

I hope every one had a great and safe weekend. This is a great time for family and friends. School is out and summer fun is here. So why did I say now is the time to give? Because every one gives donations to the food banks and shelters at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is a long time till then and there are people going hungry now. People don’t think about donations in the summer so food banks run low or even run out. At Christmas stores and banks have ways for you to donate food or money, but now how do you even find a place to donate some food now? One of the best things I saw was a grocery store that instead of a food donation box they had a helping hand. It was a hand cut out of craft paper. If you bought a hand you put your name on it and it got put up on the wall. Most did not have names on them. There were three colours, one for $1.00, one for $5.00 and one for $10.00. The idea is you bought a helping hand and at the end of the month the money was given in gift cards to the local food bank. That way the food bank could either give the cards out or buy what people needed the most. If you know of a local food bank or a local store, or even a bank, tell them about it and see if they would be interested in doing the “Helping Hands” now when the food banks need the donations the most. It’s a small thing, but even a $1.00 helps out when a lot of people give.

The other thing we need to give is blood. It seems that there are more accidents in the summer time, more blood is needed. So if you can give blood, please do so.