The holidays can sometimes bring a certain sadness for those in metro Atlanta struggling to make ends meet.
United Way’s 2-1-1 referral center took in a record 400,000 calls last year from our metro Atlanta neighbors needing help.
We are, unfortunately, on course to pass that record this year because needs are so great. Utility bill, food and rent/mortgage help remain our most sought-after requests.
As we move into the holiday season, I want to pose this community challenge: Do What You Can Where You Are. It is a challenge framed much like the inspiring story in Ted Gup’s superb “A Secret Gift,” which tells of his grandfather’s personal mission in 1933 to help his Ohio neighbors get through the Great Depression.
My challenge could mean offering a relative, friend or stranger a few dollars to pay a utility bill. It could mean giving a toy during Toys for Tots. Spend an hour with residents at a nursing home who have no family with which to spend the holidays. Hold a shoe drive like Grayson High did, whose recent Holy Soles project collected 2,000 pairs of footwear for those in need.
It could mean surprising a homeless person on the exit ramp with a sandwich and a note to dial 2-1-1 to end her homelessness. It could mean raking leaves for an elderly neighbor or visiting a group home to color, tutor or shoot basketball with the kids. Donate a business suit so someone living in poverty can look for a job. Have a bake sale with proceeds going to your favorite charity. Make someone laugh today. The options are endless for what I call “actions of compassion.”
If you consider recent headlines of people trying desperately to cope with this lagging economy, sometimes with tragic consequences, that metro Atlanta’s jobless rate surpasses the national average, and the fact that Georgia has one of the highest poverty rates in the country, then you’ll begin to grasp the urgency of us all working together this holiday and all year to create positive change.
If we as compassionate individuals extend one act of kindness, then collectively the impact we make will be phenomenal.
So who will accept my challenge?
I’d love to read some of the ways that you Do What You Can Where You Are. Email me at milton@uwma.org.
Milton J. Little Jr. is president of United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta.
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