Your Community Deserves Your Help

It’s Time to Channel Some of That Food Aid Angst Into Action

I will wax philosophical for a minute and go back in time, to 2012. My sister was terminally ill in a Wyoming hospital. I was driving across the windswept plains, hoping to make it there in time to say goodbye. 

Though I wasn't with my sister when she went into the hospital for the last time, she wasn't alone.

A community supported her and her family. I lived far away, but the people of Laramie, Wyoming looked after them. They brought in meals and stayed by Valerie and her husband and children to the very end. Some were neighbors and church friends, but the kindness didn't stop with them.

The hotel where my family gathered welcomed us. Nearly all of us had at least a day's drive to get there. As we gathered to say goodbye to my sister, we realized we had no space to sit together as a family. The hotel let us use one of their waiting rooms. 

Valerie was exhausted that night, so Oldest Sister and I made a plan to see her the next morning. She passed away before we could get in. (I've written about this before. I take a lot of comfort in knowing that the last time we saw Valerie, it was a happy day. She knew we loved her.)

Our focus as a family turned to planning a funeral. That hotel meeting room remained our base camp for several days, until the funeral was over and we packed up and drove or flew home. I have so many memories of that room; some are heartbreaking, some still glow with the laughter we were able to share, in spite of everything. 

Valerie's church friends helped with the funeral, too. 

By the end of that week I was looking for ways to show some love to the town of Laramie, Wyoming. At the time, my best idea was to give a good recommendation for the hotel and to buy University of Wyoming merch from the local Wal-Mart. (I still have it. My UW lanyard is looking tired, though.) 

It still didn't stop there. The community continued its support to the family my sister left behind. And finally I figured out a better way to pay it forward: Donations. We added the Laramie Interfaith charity to the local organizations on our Christmas list. Our checks weren't large, but they were from the heart. 

I'm bringing this up now because every community needs our help. So many of us have reasons to pay it forward. 

I'll say this to those who shake their heads and say that people who need food aid should just get a job: the people I know who need help also have jobs. They are working to the best of their ability, but illness and disability and medical expenses and the convolutions of our own social support system keep them in poverty.

So I'll end with an appeal: if you are upset with the lack of problem-solving we are experiencing in this country, channel some of that angst into action. Go to the website of your favorite food aid charity and see how you can help. I know the organization where I live can buy a lot more food with my cash than I can, so it's smarter to send them money than to clean out my pantry for them. (This is in no way meant to discourage those whose best way to help is through donating from their own stores.) Every organization will have its own preferences.

It's so easy to find out how to help. It's so easy to make a donation. And the time to do it is now.