By SUE SEIBERT
Raf got me a Roku for Christmas, as well as a membership in Netflix and I haven’t watched so many movies in a really long time! One I watched was called “Craig’s List Joe.” It was a documentary about a young man who, with a camerman he found on Craig’s List, dropped out for a month, 30 days, without money and carrying only a iPad and an iPhone. He was testing the theory that people nowadays don’t take care of each other and he was trying to find out if he could live simply by finding help, work, food and a place to sleep through Craig’s List.
And you know what, he proved that people out there are still willing to help each other. And, I believe he’s right, but ...
Reflecting on the season just passed, I think about some of the things our family did and some of the things our community did to help others.
I could make a huge list of things like Tommy’s Angel Tree, all the various food pantries and all the various agencies whose mission statements are aimed at helping people in our community.
I’ve seen various ads on television, especially in November and December, from national groups asking for help for people all over the world and I know most of these agencies are worthy. Our family donated to Operation Christmas which sent its gifts through First Baptist Church.
But I began to wonder how many of the children, youth, adults and elderly in Mineral Wells and Palo Pinto County did not have a happy Christmas because they were missed. How many people here had no food, perhaps because they didn’t know where to go to food pantries or who they needed to contact? How many children here did not have toys? How many people had to spend Christmas alone because either they had no family or because no one cared?
And what about the other ten months of the year? I know we all make a special effort to reach out to people during Thanksgiving and Christmas, but do we forget those same people the rest of the year?
I also wonder about our local support groups. Are we all working together so that more people get help? Or are we working separately? Are we endeavoring to meet the needs of people in July as well as in December?
I wish there was one central location where we could all go to help, where we could coordinate our efforts of support for our fellow citizens. I realize several churches have food pantries, but wouldn’t it be great if it could be organized into one, like, for instance, the back to school fair is an effort by many agencies? I know these groups, churches, agencies are not all the same. They don’t believe the same, their mission statements are not the same, they are ethnically not the same. But I do believe they are all involved for the same reason. To help the community. What do you say? Can we all get together and care about the people in our community as a whole?
Well, it’s a thought.
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