Gratitude(please read!)

Little story! So I come from a fairly well off background and it has always been in my family’s nature to give. Considering the area we live in is fairly well off, there are a lot of people suffering in silence due to poverty, people both in and around my neighbourhood. In regards to food banks, they weren’t open at all hours, and the nearest one is wayyyy too far for someone to walk to.

So with this understanding, in 2021, my parents decided to start something which we call a ‘mini food bank’ just outside our house. It’s a wooden box, propped up on a stand, with glass door cabinets. The idea was, anything anyone needed, whether it was food for their lunch, or a toy they couldn’t afford for their child, it was all available for them. This took up a great chunk of my parents grocery bill each week, and you could really see the impact it was having on my family financially, but regardless my parents still continued it.

My idiotic self was so embarrassed about this, all my friends would walk past and ask me what it was, and I would try and avoid the subject by saying ‘it’s just another one of my parents projects’.

However, over time I began to understand the support it was really giving other people. Young mothers would come asking for baby food, some elderly on a small pension would come take basic necessities, but the thing that really struck me was this; no one took more than what they needed. They weren’t greedy. They weren’t selfish. Instead they considered others, and took ONLY what they were desperately in need of. This made me wonder; we have fridges in which we struggle to keep all of our food in, but there are many who struggle to even afford food to keep in their fridge, let alone even afford a fridge.

Recently, a young man of about 30 came knocking on our door. The food in the food bank had ran out, and my parents forgot to restock it. He said ‘ I’m really sorry to be bothering you, but is there anything for me to eat, I haven’t got any money to buy anything’. And after a few minutes he then asks for a small bit of washing up liquid, as he can’t even afford basic sanitation to clean his dishes. He’s in his thirties, recently just got homing in a council flat after 3 years of homelessness, and is up to his neck with paying off his student loan and his bills. This really got me thinking.

We live a lavish life, and are often too filled with greed and selfishness to even consider the person right beside us. We are born with nothing, and when we die, we leave with nothing as well. So therefore nothing truly belongs to just us. Although we are all of different walks of life, make sure to always give to others, no matter how small it is, because you never know; it could really turn their life around!!

Ps, go up to ur parents and give them a hug and a thank you for all they do, the amount they sacrifice for us is crazy!

Never forget gratitude <3
Goodnight

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