I imagine that my affinity for Washington comes through loud and clear in my blog. I am a blatent and unaplogetic home-towner. But I'm not blind to the problems we have here, and it isn't heaven on earth...just a regular community struggling with regular problems.
There was an article in yesterday's paper about how charities are having trouble meeting the demand for Thanksgiving this year, since donations are down and requests for help are up. Someone from one of the nonprofits put it this way: "Either you thin the soup or cut the line."
In the opening remarks at the Walkathon yesterday, Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.'s non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, for those of you not familiar with our local politics) mentioned that 1/3 of the homeless people in the area work. Then of course you have the working poor who can afford rent, as long as they don't buy food. This is an expensive place to live...rent on a 2-bedroom apartment where I am is about $1200 a month. There's a waiting list for subsidized housing, a waiting list that's closed to new applicants.
I give money to the health-related charities for myself, because those are the diseases I'm trying to avoid. I support the food- and shelter-related organizations because there but for the grace of God go I. It hasn't been that long since I was living paycheck to paycheck, and while I have a tightly-woven safety net of friends and family close by, not everyone is that fortunate.
I realized this week that I can do another small thing besides write some checks. It began, interestingly enough, with the dump...I'd gone to the web page for the municipal solid waste department to look up a recycling guide. They have a program called the "Use it Again Guide" that lists organizations accepting donations. I found one that needs household goods for families transitioning to their own homes from shelters as well as school and craft supplies for the kids. I looked around at the extra coffee pot, the extra vaccum cleaner, the drawers of pens and magic markers and craft projects that never got off the ground.
This will cost me nothing...it helps me, actually, clean up my house...and hopefully it will thicken the soup a little for this organization and help out some of my neighbors.
Posted by Nic at November 21, 2004 01:09 PM