While Generation X is the generation that gives the most to charities and is very big on volunteer work, as I talk to busy Gen Xers, I often hear them say they wish they could do more to help our communities and beyond. Many of us want to be more charitable with time and resources, but in the rush of daily life, work, kids, and responsibilities, it can get moved to the back-burner. My solution for this is sorting out a couple of quick logistics.
Here are two key ideas: having a place, and having a system.
Let's say you want to give to a food bank, and you set food aside to do this, but by the time you finally have time to drop it off, the food is already expired so you have to throw it away. Coming up with a system in your home can solve this. You can usually do this in 30 minutes or less. Maybe you have a retired neighbor who sees a friend once a month who volunteers at a food bank. Knowing you are not usually going to have time to drive 20 minutes to do a food bank delivery, you could put it on your calendar to drop off food to that neighbor's porch every month on a certain day. Having a specific place in your house to set the food aside you want to give means it doesn't just get mixed back in with the other food in your pantry.
My family and I wanted to help villages in third world countries get accessible wells. Westgate Church in San Jose, CA takes plastic recyclable plastic bottles and aluminum cans, uses the volunteer work of its members to process everything, and donates the money. Since this began in 2013, there are 37,000 people in 16 countries who now have access to clean water who previously did not.
Here's what we did on our end:
We put a separate recycle bin just for cans right next to our regular recycle bin. We put a big label on it so that down the road it doesn't accidentally get moved or used for something else. We set up a system where we crush the cans about once a week or so. We have a larger bin in the garage that holds the crushed cans. Both of these bins created a specific place in our house so that this could work, and by thinking it through, we now have a system - the bin in the garage is right next to the car and even right next to where we store bags, so we can easily pull it all together and drop it off when it is convenient.
If you want to give but you don't know what charity would most help people, here are two simple, practical ideas for you: just think of food and water.
Water: by helping villages in third world countries get wells, this solves all kinds of problems. Other than having water to drink, and for health, it also means they can water crops and grow food. This can mean that less people have to leave a village to go to a faraway city to be breadwinners so families can stay together, and the list goes on. Having clean water helps protect human rights; it creates a way for a community to thrive. World Vision has brought clean water to thousands of villages:
Food: One out of six Americans go hungry. If you've ever experienced any amount of time going hungry, it is unbelievably hard to make it through the day. Life is hard enough, and being hungry makes it hard to concentrate in school or at work. When fresh garden food goes in the trash, it's because people, who would actually like to give it away, don't have a way (a system) to do this. Ample Harvest helps connect gardeners to food pantries:
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(c) 2020 writing and photo by Chloe Koffas - all rights reserved
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