Holiday Thoughts

In my continued efforts to fight materialism I told my wife what I really wanted for Christmas was to volunteer some place locally.

Finding a place to volunteer your time on Christmas Day is not nearly as easy as you might think, but after much searching, Jessica found the Grace Episcopal Church in Honesdale, PA looking for some extra hands to serve dinner. We discovered that Christmas Day is not the only day the church is hosting free dinner. They work together with other local churches to collectively also host a free dinner every Saturday, Thanksgiving Day, and New Years Day. For more information, call the Grace Episcopal Church at 570-253-2760 or Laura on her cell phone at 570-862-5509.

I've wanted to do something like this for quite some time and it was even more rewarding than I could have imagined. The warmth and love shared between total strangers was practically overwhelming. Reflecting on our wonderful experience, Jessica and I plan to be regular volunteers for the Grace Episcopal Church until we can initiate our own program. Initially we would like to organize some sort of charitable event hosted by Kenoza Lake Estates for Easter Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day for the benefit of local families or organizations that are in need. Ultimately (and ideally) it would be wonderful to organize something more regular than three times per year, but we have to start somewhere!

I would love to hear thoughts and ideas on this topic especially suggestions on who should be our first beneficiaries, keeping in mind that I would this to be as local to Kenoza Lake as possible...