Who Did You Give A Hand Up To This Week?

[MoseyWalker]

I'm lucky. I work for a non profit who actually is letting me do my thing while I'm recovering. Beautiful people.

Anyway.

How did you help a person this week?

[TomInTib]

1. I helped a blind woman pick Birthday Cards.

Does that count?

[MoseyWalker]

2. Only if true

and if so

hell yes.

[TomInTib]

7. OK, here's the deal...

I was hanging around on this little deck on Main Street in our little town (Tiburon, California).

Hanging out with an old friend of mine. Hell, I'm gonna use his name - Tom Snyder, he used to be a somewhat infamous presence on late-night talk shows. Succeeded by Leno.

Our friend with the card shop had wandered off and Snyder and me were keeping score and solving the world's problems. Luckily, my sweetheart was there, as well.

This woman comes walking up the sidewalk from lower Main onto Ark Row.

Walks right into Roxanne's shop and asks us if we can help her with some cards..

because she is blind.

Macular degeneration, she said.

I don't know much about cards, but my sweetheart does, having been the buyer for WHSmith (airport news/card/etc. shops).

So we helped her out and knocked the ball right out of the park, card-wise.

The story actually gets a lot better but I am tired of typing, for I am glacially slow on this thing.

Two index fingers, cereallously.

[MoseyWalker]

9. I used to stay up way too late

to watch tom. I really enjoyed him, and still miss his presence.

Peace to you and your friends.

[havocmom]

3. Helped a shy little boy

and a sweet Little old lady.

One was feeling out of place & geeky in a semi-crowd of boisterous kids. Other was just sorta confused and flustered.

It really costs nothing to just be kind. And the rewards one find one gets are usually much greater than the effort required.

My mom always said, if it doesn't cost ya to be nice, BE NICE. Makes you richer in the long run than anything else.

[barbtries]

4. happy to say

i did make a difference for a grieving mother this week, by clearing up the glitch or the lack of communication between her and the victim/witness advocate. her son was riding shotgun in his girlfriend's car over labor day weekend when they were both shot by someone in a neighboring vehicle. Victim Witness person told her her son was on probation or parole, or was a convicted felon? at any rate they refused to release funds for burying her son. meantime the coroner calls her up and says come get your son's body we can't keep it forever and she has no means. so as an advocate working with Justice for Murdered Children I called the detective assigned to the murder case and with one phone call cleared the air. The young man, 25 years old, was an innocent victim. father of a 3-year-old who almost lost both of her parents but thankfully the girlfriend though critically injured will recover. And now Sandra can bury her son with the proper rites. amen

[Erika]

5. I gave $100 to a pregnant gal who now hates the father

but wants the baby. We've already bought her a crib.

[gkdmaths]

12. Thats priceless

I might go out in search of someone in need now, just to one-up you!

That kind of negates the karmic benefits, though, doesnt it?

:)

[catnhatnh]

6. My charity du jour is....

...an alcoholic ironworker.Nice enough guy but naive...lent him a car for the week because his car broke,with the proviso that if he drank in it, I'd pull the wheels.Since a week without work would have cost him his job and apartment, to the best of my knowledge he's been good-got the car back tonight and the local watering hole reports him as a no show....So does that float your boat?

[Erika]

8. I've always felt proud of Dems. We just do.

We don't wave it on banners, seek tax incentives, etc. We just do.

[catnhatnh]

10. I gotta say....

...this is why I love DU. 2am on the right coast and within minutes multiple posters have stories of helping someone THIS WEEK. Hmm, Saint Paul's Epistle to someone about "faith without works" appears to come into play-I doubt the replies would have come in so fast in "the site that dare not speak it's name"....

[gkdmaths]

11. More than 200

struggling chemistry, biology and physics students, many of whom are underpriveledged and underconfident, however potentially competent budding scientists.

does that count?

Some could cure cancer or even find a solution to political stupidity - in one fell swoop I may have completely eradicated the morans of the world!

:7

[MoseyWalker]

13. You know better than to ever doubt!

I know it gets difficult sometimes, but you said it yourself:
"underprivileged and underconfident"

hey! It, and anything, could happen!

[gkdmaths]

14. Well, you just have to

keep going out of your way to continue to offer more and more opportunities for them to grow and develop into more and more confident and competent people.

Thats been my goal for the past few years.

It seems to have worked very well for the most part - Ive got a few students that go to Tblisi regularly trying to find a cure for the rampant TB by means of bacteriophage, etc. They're succeeding en masse!

:thumbsup:

[fortyfeetunder]

15. half-orphaned child

contributed to a trust fun for a child who lost a parent all too soon....

[amitten]

16. I just gave my brother $20.

Just because I think he needs it.

[pecwae]

17. A homeless woman with a pet

She was sitting in front of the Barnes & Noble with her puppy looking thru the books on an outside table at Chapel Hill B&N Sunday.

At first I thought she was just waiting for someone inside. I came out, she was still sitting there and I came over to pet the puppy. We talked for a minute and she told me she and the pup were homeless. She had just used the last of her money for kibble for this pup she had found on the side of a road. She asked me if I would go in and buy her a bagel. She didn't ask for money.

We dug around and only found $5 which I gave to her. On the way home I just wept thinking that no one in this country should be hungry! My husband asked, "Do you want to go back?" Damn straight I did, but first we had to find an ATM.

It literally took us over 1 1/2 hours to find a working ATM and I was sure she'd be gone when we got back to the B&N. But no, there she was in the same spot we left her. I asked her if she had gotten a bagel, but she said she had gone to Hardee's becasue she could get more for her money. I just handed her a wad of $20's.

I can't get her out of my mind. Her face and that pup's face will always be with me.