Christmas 2004
 

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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