giving back

My latest Our Kids Aritcle

TV. Radio. The Internet. Chatting with friends. This week it was everywhere. The news. The disaster. The terrible tragedy that happened in Haiti. Every story makes you sadder. Every tear makes you want to do more. Help. Donate. Try to give back. I put out a challenge to my Facebook and Twitter pals to match my $10 donation at Plan Canada (click the link to make a donation yourself). I feel like that’s all I can do. I feel like that’s all I want to do and am able to do more. Because I live in Canada. Because I’ve been lucky. I’ve been brought up with a good groundwork around me. Amazing parents. Two wonderful sisters. An awesome family. I’ve been able able to acquire some of the best friends in the world. I always have dough. I have a roof over my head every night. I got shoes, shirts, hats, new music, a computer. I’m well off. This is the exact reason why I feel like I know I can do more. However, using the mediums I do have access to, I’m doing what I can under the current circumstances I’m in.


Have I always been like this?


I started to listen more to the news after my Grade 11 Social Studies class. That year, that class inspired me. It wasn’t always the chats we had. Or the things we learned about. But it was what we did. We took action. We went to a local Native reserve and learned about the troubles they were having at the time with the Canadian Government. We went to Homeless Shelters and talked to the people there. We toured Toronto and made a point to notice things we usually won’t see. The poverty. The street kids. It opened my eyes. I started to read the newspaper. Dug deep into the stories I found intriguing.

Since that year, I always made a point to help out. Be it with a charity, a local organization. Every year I looked around and chose the place I felt needed my help the most. I don’t always talk about these things, because I believe that charity is for the self and not to be broadcasted, but other times, it needs to be talked about because its learning about what you do inspires others. Just like I was in that spring of 1995.