Advice From A Park Ranger

            Since this blog is about how one person can make a difference, I thought I would start with a story that some of us may be familiar with.  When visiting a National Park, we are always told by the park ranger, “Don’t pick the flowers.  You may think it’s only one flower, but thousands of people visit this park and if everyone picked a flower, there would be no flowers left.”  I’d like to take this negative message and put a positive spin on it.

With the poor economy, Food Pantries are critically low.  Some grocery stores offer 10 for $10 deals.  Most grocery stores have items on sale for a dollar or less that could be used in the food pantry.  So, if you watch the sales, it would only take a dollar a week to buy one thing to put into the Food Pantry collection basket.  You’re in the grocery store already, so you don’t have to make a special trip.  The baskets are easy to find; churches, community centers, even grocery stores have them at times.  It’s a simple way of making a difference.

Now, if we take into account a community of 100 people whether it is a church, a social club, a school etc…and every week they give one food item to the food pantry, there’s one hundred items the pantry did not have.  Within each city, there are a number of these communities, which multiplies that number.  So, instead of having no flowers for people to enjoy as the park ranger warned against, we could have food pantries filled to help others enjoy a meal.