A holiday dinner is a good time to sit down after dinner and talk with family members and close friends, about what can we do to help others, and how can we help ourselves, too, at this special time of year.
This is a good time to share thoughts about the good fortune we have to live in this great country, where even those who have lost jobs generally are still protected by a small safety net. In this nation, most people really do try to help each other in times of trouble. In fact, a lot of organizations in this area have had food drives over the last few weeks, so that unemployed people and their families can still have good Thanksgiving dinners.
At your get-together, you can talk about things that your family can do, as well as things each of you might do individually. You can make a promise to help others who are out of work, by being a mentor, by giving to a non-profit organization (like Goodwill, your church or temple, or a local soup kitchen) which helps the needy or hungry, or by donating your time or services to help others.
What is involved in doing these things? Consider the value of being a mentor. A mentor is someone with experience in an area, such as sales or carpentry, or any blue collar type job or management position, who tries to help someone else learn the ropes, so they can get a job, or get promoted in the job field they are already involved in. A good mentor helps a person learn what it takes to succeed in a particular field. The mentor helps them figure out what tools, educational requirements, or skills they need to have. A mentor also lets their trainee know how to avoid mistakes.
When you help someone get a job or a promotion, you sharpen your own skills, too. As you teach another person how to dress appropriately for a job, or write a resume that helps get the job, you reinforce your own best work habits, so your good deed does double duty.
If you are giving support to organizations that help the neediest, you might want to find out which local charities get the biggest bang for the buck. If you know who the group you want to support is helping, that is fine. Otherwise, you might want to contribute to a statewide or nationally known organization with a good reputation. Beware of telephone solicitors, unless you know them, because many of them keep all but a small amount of your donation for themselves. For those who can volunteer time, hospitals such as Southern Maine Medical Center, your library, schools or the local Y, to name but a few organizations, need dependable people to provide help for some of the services their budgets might not be able to cover, without such volunteer help.
For those of you who might be out of work, volunteering is a great way to find a new job. Volunteers meet other people with whom they can network. Volunteers often learn new job skills that can help in a job search. Volunteers who do really good work can often get references that will also help them with new job opportunities.
This holiday season is your chance to think about the state of the world, the state of the nation, the state of our economy, and the conditions facing you and your family. We need to be grateful for the opportunities we have. We need to be positive about the future. And we need to help others who can not help themselves enough, right now.
Thanksgiving should inspire us to talk about what everyone in our family and circle of friends can do to improve our communities and our well being in these tough economical times. This is the time to do good deeds. As someone wise once said, “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it is called the present.”
Let us all work to make this difficult time a little more pleasant for everyone.
— Bernard Featherman is a past president of the Biddeford-Saco Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached by e-mail: bernard@featherman.com.
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