A Mommy Story

With the inauguration just two days away, I’ve been thinking a lot about what this new administration will bring, and how it will affect me. One thing I really admire about Obama is his continual message of unity and the need to work together. His Renew America Together initiative is especially impressive. The message is simple: things are hard right now for much of this country, and if we’re going to have better days, we need to find a way to work together again to improve our communities.

It makes sense to me. Our sense of community isn’t what it used to be. I know very little about my neighbors. Trying to pull them all together to fight a development behind us is hard to do. And someone who used to live in our community was the one breaking into our homes and stealing our things. No one watches out for their neighbors, and no one cares about their neighbors’ hardships.

As a kid, I knew everyone on my block. Most of the neighbors knew each other and spent time talking as friends would do. They visited each other all the time. If someone had a tragedy in their family, neighbors would bring them food and offer words of comfort. Our school collected good-condition used clothing each fall to distribute to other kids in our town who needed them.

I want my daughters to know the importance of helping others, too. We’ve received help from friends and family ever since Aaron was laid off, and we’ve done our best to help others with what we have. Boxes of old clothing recently went to Goodwill, serving the dual functions of making more room in our home as well as providing income for a great charity.

Right before Christmas I also brought large donation of diapers, formula, a dollhouse and Johnson & Johnson baby products to our local YWCA family shelter. Just this past week I received a very nice letter from them, thanking us for providing items they so desperately need.

We’re going to continue all of this in 2009. In re-organizing Mira’s room yesterday, I found more clothing that we no longer need. Continuing to give items we no longer use or need to Goodwill or other charities helps others, but also simplify our lives as well. I’ll also continue giving to the YWCA family shelter – with the recession tightening its hold more each day, I know this organization will need any assistance we can offer to provide for the increasing numbers of families seeking out their help.

I do believe that if we all made some effort to better our towns and cities, we’d see some amazing changes. It’s about time we all came together for something other than a national tragedy.

What about you? What will you do in 2009 to help your community?

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by The Quaker Oats Company.