A Year of Positive Action: Week Nine

Help the hungry in your community.
Make a donation to your local soup kitchen or food pantry.
If you are struggling financially and a donation of goods is not something you can work into your budget, consider offering the priceless gift of our time. You can help package, serve, or deliver food to others who are in need.

“If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” ~Mother Teresa
 
Shared with permission by Positivity Nation. Visit them at www.positivitynation.com.

This morning I am reflecting back to my childhood. I used to love to go grocery shopping with my Mom. It was girl time, it was fun, and she could always use a hand wheeling around the second cart. I used to wheel the cart with multiple gallons of milk. There were seven of us in the family, five of whom were boys, and they were big milk drinkers!  An entire shelf of our huge refrigerator was designated as the milk shelf.

Every week, my Mom would ask the cashier to bag certain items separately ... milk, bread, eggs, cheese, fruit, veggies, tuna, meat and sometimes chocolate or another sweet treat. There were two bags every week. They were carefully set aside from the rest of the bags as we packed the car. On the way home, my Mom would drive to that familiar gray three family house. She would stop the car and get out with the two bags of groceries. She would disappear toward the back of the house and come back in a moment with a satisfied look on her face and drive away in silence with no words.

One day, I asked why we always stopped at that gray house and what she did with those bags. Eventually, she told me that when she disappeared behind the house, she quietly snuck in the back door of the building and left the groceries outside an apartment door of a family she knew was struggling. Every week ... anonymously ... for months and months. She told me it was better that way; to give without recognition and without expecting anything in return. She told me that she felt good doing it. The she told me that what we give away returns to us ten-fold.

My Mom was right about so many things!