Doing the right thing-helping those in need

Last Friday was one of those special days when you leave the office knowing you helped make a difference. Nothing worthy of headline news or anything of that sort. More of the pass-it-forward-type of difference where you have a good feeling inside knowing what you did was going to bring a smile to someone in dire need.

You see, our company presented its employees with an opportunity to help the folks in Haiti. Totally voluntary.

The United Methodist Church is conducting a Haiti charity drive where they have asked individuals to put a few personal care items in a gallon plastic freezer bag and drop it off for them to collect for a shipment to those in Haiti who had nothing.

The list was simple and short: a bar of soap; a wash cloth; a face towel, a comb; a fingernail file or nail clipper; six band-aids; and a toothbrush.

The simple gesture struck close to home. My wife and I lived through Hurricane Katrina when it hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast, literally  flushing four Mississippi coastal towns into the woods and leaving nothing behind except foundations and piles of rubble. Half of the  town we lived in was wiped clean.

Katrina left tens of thousands of Mississippians were without food, water or shelter for more than a month.

Randall-Reilly president Mike Reilly (left) hands IT supervisor Jevon Lewis a care package being preparred for shipment to Haiti.

Do you know who was there to help first? Not FEMA. Not the Red Cross. Not some high-profile charity organization. Church groups,  the Rainbow Coalition, and private individuals. That’s right, people helping people.

They brought clothing, food, water and supplies in the back of pickups, minivans, buses, and even semis. They served hot meals and drove through the debris handing out water and food to those who couldn’t get out.

From first-hand experience I know when a dollar is donated to a church toward helping those in need or for a special relief effort, every penny goes where they say it will. It’s not divied-up to cover “operational expenses” or “management fees” like the high-profile charity organizations. Your money, or whatever it is you donate, to the local church groups gets to where it is needed–to those in need.

So last Friday my wife and I put together five little freezer bags with the basics to help those in need on an island country thousands of miles from our border. It’s our tiny way of passing it forward. So did a lot of other Randall-Reilly employees.

Boxes of personal care packages being loaded onto chruch bus at Randall-Reilly offices for shipment to Haiti.

In all, some 600 personal care packages, placed in cardboard boxes, left our office Friday afternoon headed to Louisiana for a quick boat ride with thousands of other similar boxes bound for Haiti.

There they  will be hand-delivered by church volunteers to everyone who needs a wash cloth, toothbrush and a bar of soap.  That makes for a really good day. – Bruce W. Smith, Editor