Have you noticed all of the good news in the Great Bend Tribune in recent weeks?
We’ve seen students serving meals at the soup kitchen and visiting nursing homes.
During the month of November, for the Giving Tuesday promotion sponsored by the Golden Belt Community Foundation, more than 650 separate donations totaling over $200,000 were made to charitable causes in Barton, Pawnee, Rush and Stafford counties.
Not every good deed made headlines. The Great Bend Kiwanis Club, for example, quietly purchased 35 boxes of food and delivered them to homes ahead of Christmas, as they do every year. Having just listened to some cynics talk about greedy, undeserving recipients of charity, who allegedly have expensive trucks in their driveways and receive food boxes and gifts from every group they can find — we asked Kiwanians who made food deliveries to share their experiences. Barry Bowers was first to respond and probably said it best:
“It is easy to judge someone by appearances but you really don’t know their story. They might be half a step from disaster. I know a couple of the stops I did were to folks in tough places now. Family issues or job changes, some in and some out of their control, have left them hurting. I always come home realizing that I am even more blessed than I thought in the beginning. It is a great feeling to share just a little bit of that blessing.”
“Barry, very well said,” added Paul Snapp. “One of the stops Barry and I made was to a home with a condemnation notice from the City on the front of the home, for good reason I might add. Certainly, those folks were in a tenuous situation.”
“There were no expensive pickups where I went,” Paul Maneth said. “I did see single moms who were very appreciative of what we doing. I’m guessing that I wasn’t the only one who had the experience. After delivering a few years, the good far outweighs the bad.”
Frankie Pelster is an employment specialist for Rosewood Services and helps clients with developmental disabilities run their own Kiwanis Aktion Club, the Rosewood Miracle Workers. They routinely do community service projects of their own, such as collecting crayons and coloring books for children who enter foster homes through St. Francis. Several Aktion Club members also helped the Kiwanis deliver food boxes again this year.
“It is and always has been a very positive experience for my members to do this, because when they see a single mom or someone they know from church or even a family member of theirs and they know that there is a need, it brings such joy to them to help,” Pelster said. “I do not believe that anyone that we delivered boxes to was not in need of it.”
Robert Bauer, who helped with the Kiwanis delivery and then helped deliver food boxes for his church later that morning, summed it up by saying, “It’s been my experience that most people with negative comments have never volunteered to serve those in need. They are looking for a reason to justify their inaction. I’m not saying that no one has ever taken advantage of the system but the vast majority of those who received boxes were in need.”
This isn’t intended to be a guilt trip. As rock star and philanthropist Jon Bon Jovi says about “kids going to school hungry — in this land of plenty? Come on — we can fix this! Help out. Or don’t. The choice is yours.”
Heading into the new year, it’s heartwarming to see all those who choose to help in a way they find meaningful.
