Manic Monday | This Thanksgiving... Feed Just One... (more)
Do you take the time to consciously reflect on the importance of this season and the marking of Thanksgiving. Whether you spend this time enjoying the outdoors, relaxing with family and friends or simple unwinding from a busy summer this is a very special occasion. Unlike our neighbors to the south Canadian Thanksgiving stands alone. Fortunately for us it does not mark the start of the frenzied Christmas shopping season but rather is a brief reprieve at the end of harvest with summer a memory and winter knocking. It is an opportunity to press pause and reflect on the abundance that most of us living in Canada, British Columbia and the Thompson Okanagan Region often take for granted.
Most wake up in warm homes with access to clean water, a healthy food supply, medical care, vehicles to transport us on excellent road systems, the support of family and friends...and this list could go on and on. However if you are like many, myself included, these incredible gifts are often taken for granted and overshadowed by the endless "issues, challenges and grievances " of our day to day lives.
It is an important time to acknowledge that there are many Canadians that do not have all these gifts that we so easily dismissed. Canadians who are not sitting down to a Thanksgiving meal, who live in poverty and face tremendous real challenges each day due to any number factors both external and self imposed. As Canadians we often focus attention on the plight of citizens in countries around the world we are known to be generous to a fault, but neglect some of the real issues that exist here at home effecting our own people in every part of the country.
So my challenge to all of us this Thanksgiving season is to first step back and take time to really appreciate all that you have been given in your life. The small and large things which so many in this world don't ever have the opportunity to experience. And then consider and commit to what you could do in the coming year to help a Canadian in need. There is so much that each of us can do that takes little effort but collectively can make a very large and important impact.
"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one" Mother Teresa.....
Glenn Mandziuk, TOTA President & CEO
