This past weekend I volunteered to be a Christmas bell ringer for the Salvation Army. The shift was three hours long on Saturday afternoon, but we had unusually warm weather this weekend so it was actually very pleasant to be outside for that long. I had always wanted to volunteer for this because I admire those who give their time to such a great cause; it is so great and selfless. So I decided to finally do it this year, and I have to tell you, I am so glad I did! I can't tell you how good it felt to give some of my time to help so many less fortunate people to have a better Christmas.
Besides knowing how many people I was helping, I have to say that another reason I enjoyed it so much was the chance to see the good in so many people who donated to my kettle. I had so many friendly people come up and talk to me and thank me for volunteering; even those who didn't have change on them would come tell me they would love to donate but couldn't, and also thanked me for taking my time to do this. My husband also came along and helped me out for a bit during my shift, and felt the same as I did about this. It was such a postive experience in so many ways that we are thinking how nice it would be to make it a tradition to do this every year, and I love the idea of still volunteering when we have kids to teach them how important community service is. It makes me wonder why I haven't done more of this....I just thought how if everyone gave up just a couple of hours once a year for community service how much we could do for those in need. It is truely a rewarding experience.