Many times, over the last couple of years, readers have emailed me with offers to send money or gifts for Ponytail and Little Biker Boy, the two little neighbor kids, who sadly don’t live in my neighborhood any more. It’s really sweet and generous and wonderful that so many people are praying for those kids, rooting for them, and wanting to help.
I’m hoping some day, if I still have contact with these kids when they are adults, I can explain to them how they ended up touching so many lives. I’m hoping some day that I can tell Little Biker Boy and Ponytail how many people were thinking about them and praying for them.
As I’ve explained to anyone who has emailed me, we don’t need any financial support to help these kids. My husband and I can afford to buy them clothes and such. And I’ve got an extended family is willing to help them as well. Red-haired Sister, especially, has been willing to buy the kids whatever they need.
In my return emails to generous readers, I always say the same thing: There are kids like this in every community. There are kids like this in your community.
One blog friend emailed me last week to let me know that she’d gathered up a bunch of clothes and toys, and dropped them off at a shelter in her community that helps out battered women and children. She’d given them a check as well. Another reader told me that she’s kept an eye out for kids in her neighborhood who don’t have mittens: she’s vowed to keep knitting mittens to give away to any kid she sees who doesn’t have a pair. Another said she'd gone online, found the battered women's shelter in her community, and made a donation.
As bleak as I’ve felt lately, frustrated with my inability to help out these little kids that I’ve come to care about, it makes me feel hopeful to hear these stories. Trying to fight the cycle of abuse and neglect in our communities can be a discouraging battle, but the more of us who join that battle, the bigger the chance we have of winning.
8 comments:
Beautiful post to remind of us of what is next door to us. And really, they don't need "things" other than clothing food and shelter, what you offer cannot be bought. You are their light shining in a dark world.
Hear, hear!
You said it!
Now I know what to do with that box of small clothes that I was saving in case one of my siblings had a girl child...
How wonderful to know that your story (and theirs) has been touching so many people's lives! We already donate lots (things we no longer use and $) to friends in need and our church's community center & the boys are always involved in donation projects in school, but I want to try to be more "hands on" about it and find a place in our university town where we can help in person. Anyway, thanks for the encouraging post! (in this discouraging world where so many people are abused, and live in poverty)
So funny that you wrote this today. You know, on Facebook, people have been changing their profile pics to cartoon characters from their childhoods, which was to raise awareness of child abuse. Some people started complaining how that was a silly way to end child abuse. When I mentioned sending money to local shelters or national organizations, it was mostly crickets. After I did my online donation, I asked people where they donated. Heard nothing.
well, i'm hauling a few bags down to the place where they distribute directly to homeless and poor people, and families in shelters. and will leave a check.
For several years I have given Brand New Books to be distributed in schools that serve neighborhoods where the are a greater density of "children at risk."
I was amazed many years ago to discover that many of my patients did not and do not own a book of their own.....you can't walk in my house without tripping over books.
We may not be able to remove these children from the hand that life has dealt them, but by giving books we can give them an escape.
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