Giving

 

"...And the healing can begin." Thanksgiving: A Native American View By Jacqueline Keeler, Pacific News Service at Alternet Posted January 1, 2000

Thanksgiving Local & Organic Food Challenge: from Consumers Union November 13, 2008


Its almost time for my THIRD year of posting a holiday theme, getting ready for Christmas! In getting ready for Christmas, my one and only goal, is about the children, the families, the lone individuals that need to know someone or (better yet) a lot of 'someone's' care enough to include them on their holiday list. The first year offered a very small window because I just started blogging. Click the Christmas tree in the right side of the column to read my very first post. This blog started because of a family I hold dear, they lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, in New Orleans, when the levees breached and broke. This family was my inspiration for this blog A CHRISTMAS STORY. And the visible non-action of heads of states around the nation drove me into a frenzy of letter writing. A very mean spirited select group of people emerged during the aftermath. I wrote many Governors and I wrote all of the MN House of Representatives, several times. I must have written every Senator involved in a committee that had oversight of the funds needed to help restore the historical city of New Orleans and to make a safe way for "all" residents to return home. I wrote every little newspaper in Minnesota and I wrote many large newspapers around the country, many months after the worst disaster to befall any American city. I was compelled by what President Elect Obama termed as the 'Urgent Sense of Now.' I was dismayed by the quickly dwindling national news media's interest, all except -CNN's Anderson Cooper- on cable news. I felt anxiety over the possibility of the 'people' of New Orleans and the 'city' its self being forgotten. Although I was only a very small part of a network of a bigger more active group of caring people, I too, obsessively clung to the hope that more would be done to help all of the people of New Orleans, because time was of the essence. As time slipped away, so did the possibility of people returning to their home. Generations of family born and raised in Louisiana, exiled to places like Texas, California, Florida, New York and “yes” even Minnesota. Home is where your heart is and there is nothing stronger than the hearts that belong to New Orleans. My heart and thoughts are still with the people of the 'Big Easy.' Time is the only thing that can now heal what happened to our most gallant and dignified generation's of fellow country men, women and children - August 29, 2005.

In the coming weeks I will post many ideas for people during this upcoming holiday season. I have researched and collected ideas about resources for the holiday season, toys and other merchandise for children, how to adopt a child or the whole family for Christmas and how to help any one person during this holiday season of giving.

Thank you again to all who have visited my Kindness Means Safety Christmas 2007 post. I will be updating the 2006 / 2007 Katrina's American Angel's - KATRINA.com link in a few days, too!

Hope to see you back shortly, for brand new and renewed brands of ideas!


ps...the following post was my first towards the really awful experience of dealing with tainted toy's. That first post extended into several more as a flood of consumer products were deemed toxic and dangerous. Don't let your guard down this holiday just because congress signed a bill in August. It is still up to us to thoroughly evaluate what we buy and who made the item, all for the sake of the ones we love and care about and for the ones we may never have the privilege of meeting.
A Bad Grandma Moment! Toy Recalls Rattle Grandma World.... by awakening Sunday, September 09, 2007