Give Thanks By Giving Back

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it is a great time to give thanks by giving to others less fortunate than ourselves. Yes Thanksgiving is a wonderful day for families and friends to get together and share a traditional meal of thanks with each other, but not all people in America can always afford such a lavish meal. That is why it is important to put others before ourselves and do our best to make everyones day as special as it should be.

I have seen so many advertisements already about Thanksgiving food drives, Holiday Harvest Projects, Canned Food Drives, etc. that show the America does support and love our country enough to make sure that all families get to celebrate in remembrace of the first Thanksgiving.

As a child in grade school, I can still remember when it became this time of year and our teachers made us write down in our homework books to bring in a certain amount of cans each for the Thanksgiving drive. My school gave each grade a family to feed, so every student in the class was responsible for getting part of the meal. Doing this made me feel good about myself, especially considering most of the families we were feeding we people from our own church or neighborhood community that were just having troble affording everything that year.

As I searched for Thanksgiving food drives that were underway for this year, the pages filled with millions of matches for it. I noticed that many of the drives were put together by groups. There was one that I noticed was a Girl Scout Food Drive at http://www.currentargus.com/ci_7345617 which appealed to me because I was a former girl scout myself and also remember doing charity work such as food drives through that. It said that their Thanksgiving food drive has been underway for a few days now since November 1st. The good thing that this food drive encourages support from everyone. Anyone is able to donate money to the drive and that money is used to help the girl scouts buy all of the food they can to give to people in need. It is this particular troops seventh year doing the drive and they are very proud of all they can do for their fellow Americans.

Another Thanksgiving Food Drive that has been done annually since 1998 is one run by the Raise Foundation who last year created over 600 boxes of food to help feed Orange County's families and children. This year they are trying to surpass that total and feed even more families. This great volunteer opportunity can be found at http://www.volunteermatch.org/results/opp_detail.jsp?oppid=359491, and is an awesome way to show thankfulness by giving to those less fortunate than ourselves.

No matter what kind of charity or organization you help support during this time of thanksgiving, you are still in reality supporting not only that one group but the whole US. We together celebrate this holiday as a important moment in time in our American history, so it is essential that everyone is able to be part of the feast of thanksgiving. Do your part the best way you can to contribute to a local or national project and make this thanksgiving a unforgetable memory for all.