Monday, March 21, 2011

Pay It Forward

I have occasion from time to time with my job to drive through some ROUGH neighborhoods on the way to work. I really enjoy working with at-risk and under-served populations. Often the locations where services are provided to those populations makes my husband very nervous to say the least.

Yesterday morning as I was driving across town for my morning assignment, I was letting my mind drift to blogging and what my plans would be for this November with NaBloPoMo. Would I participate again? Would I do the Pay It Forward initiative that I did last year? At this exact moment I found myself stopped at a red light with a homeless man off to my right side. Not agressively panhandling, just a simple sign reading "HOMELESS, Please Help!" I'm not one to give on the street usually, I prefer to donate to soup kitchens, shelters, etc.

There was something about pondering pay it forward and a man who clearly could use a hand in this world that struck me. I reached over grabbed $5 out of my purse, gave it to him and told him to take care of himself.

An hour and a half later I was coming back from work and he was sitting on the side of the road eating McDonald's. It was all I could do to not openly sob.

He was hungry, I had helped.

I won't lie, it felt good.

Good to get out of my own head and help someone.

Take a moment when you can and do something nice for someone simply because you can.

3 comments:

  1. Hey, I found your post just looking for PIF stuff online... I like what you're doing. My gf and I are getting married and we want to do something a little different... instead of spending a lot of money on flowers and cake, we would like to use it to positively impact the people around us. Please help us win a beautiful Montana wedding by voting for our video and we are going to make a commitment to pay forward the entire value of the prize ($20K) and hopefully inspire others to do the same. Here's the link: http://upickem.net/9j39nilnYWk?r=425589 Please vote!

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  2. I don't mean this condescendingly, but I'm proud of you. As in "hey, my wife is awesome" kind of proud.

    You're good people, and you make the world better by being here.

    Love you!
    -Tim

    ReplyDelete
  3. Aww, thanks. You're good people too.

    ReplyDelete

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