Hey Bart, here's a Good Deed
I picked up a pack of seven telephone cards and mailed them to this address:
Medical Family Assistance Center
Walter Reed Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
Building 2, Third Floor, Room 3E01
Washington, DC 20307-5001
Bush cut off free phone calls for wounded soldiers from military hospitals.
These cards will let the soldiers call home for
Christmas. (I wish I could find some breakaway pants
for the soldiers - so they could pull off the
pants in bed, even with severed limbs. The amputees could
also use some nice, soft, non-fancy pillows on
which to rest the remainder of their legs and arms.)
It isn't much, perhaps, compared to the great needs out there...but it's something, and it's more than other people are doing.
Tom
One of the gals at work told me of a tradition in their family.
Every Christmas season, when they're in the drive
thru at McDonalds, they pay for the car behind them.
They only do this once. After they pay for their
food at the first window, they find out the amount of the
order of the car behind them when they pick up
their food at the second window.
She says it'll really make the person's day if
you do it and it spreads a little goodwill around.
I plan on doing it this year, but for someone
who really needs it, not some rich prick.
Matt
I never give money to panhandlers but about a
year and
a half ago a guy hit me up for 75 cents. I told
him
no, but I would be happy to give him the sandwich
I
had for lunch. He said ok and took it. I asked
if he
wanted me to make him a sandwich the next day
and he
said yeah. So I started making this guy sandwich.
Next thing you know I became known as the sandwich
guy
and after handing out my lunch 3 or 4 more times
I
wised up. Now I make about 6 or 8 sandwiches
a day and
pass them out on the way from my car to my building.
I live in a very military, Republican area and
I work
with a lot of people who call themselves Christians.
They think I'm the weird liberal. They tried
to get me
to stop because I "was attacting the wrong element"
to
the building. But I told them that I couldn't
stop, because
as a Christian I was obligated to help the poor.
That shut them up quick.
Andrew M
I have worked in social service group homes for
the past 16 years, and ever
since I became the director of the group home
I am at three years ago, I
have worked Giftmas. Now, I'm on salary,
so I don't get to take advantage
of getting overtime for it, and I sure don't
get any props from my boss, who
tends to think that working on weekends or holidays
would anger the Baby
Jesus. My staff are people with families,
or college students who want to
drive back home over the holidays, which is all
well and good, but at a
group home, we work with kids who can't go home
for one reason or another.
Maybe they are under house arrest, maybe they
haven't proven to a probation
officer that they can be trusted in their old
neighborhood, maybe they have
done something so they aren't allowed to go home
because Christamas at home
means more abuse or dissapointment, or maybe
they don't have a home to go
to.
I show up for work bright and early with a big
bag of video games, movies,
cookies, soda, snacks and the like and tell the
guys that we are just going
to relax for the day. I usually offer to
take them to a movie, or bowling,
or whatever is open, but they'd rather just stay
in the house and spend the
day acting like Teenage Boys, and not Teenage
Boys In A Group Home. The day
ends with each of them getting a present I have
snuck onto their pillow at
some point during the day. Nothing big,
since I have to pay from it out of
my own pocket...if you think teachers get paid
crappy wages, you haven't
worked in Social Services, but I try to get something
that will mean
something to them. And, of course, I deny
that I did it, saying that
sometimes, good things just happen.
I also worked Giftmas when I was a part-timer,
and pretty much did the same
thing, but now it seems a little more in the
true spirit of the season.
Cory
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