Gratitude is GREAT but don't forget SHARING at this time of the year - Thanksgiving!

This morning, I took a little rest after walking my dog and searched for some authentic imagery for a painting I want to do for a display at Woodbury Meeting for November. Although I am well aware of the benefits of gratitude and I practice the five gratitudes every day, this month, I am thinking how that can sometimes be a little self-congratulatory and is missing a vital component - SHARING! Often I meet someone, or read a piece in the news and my eyes are opened to something that has always been right there, in a new way. In a local news item, a couple of years ago. I read about a man and some volunteers who help him collect and distribute clothing to the homeless. That first year, three of my friends were closet cleaning and we took half a dozen bags plus some purchased items (peautbutter crackers and hand sanitizer) to the home of one of the volunteers to help them.

This week, I have been gathering more things of my own to take to Jim Piscitelli, who lives in Haddon Heights. You can find more information about him and his work by looking up his name and the word "Homeless" and you will be brought to the original article which appeared in the Sun.

For years, before I retired, another teacher and I used to run a canned goods collection for animals! I had a huge billboard and I would allow students to post pictures of their pets if they brought in canned food for for our collection. The other teacher would take the collected items to various shelters. We also collected other items such as cat carriers, dog collars and leashes, and water bowels. The stories that went with the donated items touched my heart.

So, this year, to begin with, I am going to make a painting of the Lenni Lenape ancestral inhabitants of the lands where we, in South Jersey, now live. I want to honor their memory and the tragic consequences of their interactions with the British colonizers of these lands. (full disclosure, I am definitely a descendant of those colonizers and immigrants from other European nations as well.) Secondly, the painting will be part of a display to inspire members of my Quaker Meeting in Woodbury to contribute to: 1-canned goods for food banks, and 2-clothing, blankets and supplies to help the homeless. After all the first colonials from Britain were saved from starvation by the sharing of food and planting tips from the Wampanoag people

Along with being grateful for all you have achieved and all you own, maybe you might want to expand that gratitude to sharing some of your bounty with others less fortunate, and I say fortunate because so much of what we have achieved and own is to some degree the result of our good fortune as well as our hard work. I know for myself, along with my good choices. hard work and plentiful education, there was the original gift of a sound body and mind - a gift! Not something I earned. So many homeless are victims of their unfortunate brain chemistry, addictions, tragic experiences which have left them traumatized (as with our many homeless and struggling veterans, as well as the survivors of domestic abuse who just cannot earn enough to support their children) as well as physical disabilities which leave people unable to earn enough to support themselves in this time of high rent and higher home costs.

Local Post Offices as well as Municipalities often run canned good donation drives to make it even easier, as do most churches, ask around or google for more information. If I find more information, I will add it in another post.

Have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com p/> For more information on the Lenni Lenape and original settlers see: >p/> Philadelphia's Forgotten Forebears: How Pennsylvania Erased the Lenape From Local History hiddencityphila.org Philadelphia's Forgotten Forebears: How Pennsylvania Erased the Lenape From Local HistoryHow Pennsylvania Erased the Lenape From ... hiddencityphila.org