We all hear time and time again about the poverty cycle, about families without any income, about old people who live on nothing but old age pension, disabled people who will celebrate Passover eve on their own and those who survive from one meal to the next. But for most of us this is a phenomenon not really related to us whereas our volunteers see them with their own eyes, each festive day, when giving out the food baskets bought with your money.
Volunteers and donors express the spirit of the society. They are the ones who give their time and money without calculations, in order to make it easier for those who are in shortage. And it is not difficult for them because they stare straight in the eyes of this distress and see this poverty, this suffering, this despair, and the wonderment of why things are as they are.
These things have been written with inspiration from descriptions of some of our volunteers regarding an uplifting experience of a volunteer when handing out food baskets for those in need. Not once a volunteer will wipe a tear from their eye when seeing the gratitude in the eyes of those receiving a basket full of goodness from them.
And for us at Granot Center it is important that all our donors know what a great part they have in this tear and in this sparkle.
The first thing every volunteer mentions is how much the giving empowers the giver, and how much it enables them to experience the abundance within them. Nothing empowers us more than giving something we have to someone else. Only a person who has something to give can give, and a moment of giving strengthens our acknowledgement that we have something which is valuable to someone else. If so, giving is a statement of inner abundance and a declaration of love.
And what about a return for our giving? When we give from the heart giving and receiving are one and the same, and cannot be separated, just as the sea and the waves are one. Because by giving from the heart you receive at the same moment of giving, and the actual giving is the actual receiving, and they cannot be distinguished. And this is the summation of the experience of anyone who does volunteer work or donates.
This is the wording of this concept, by a young, new and enthusiastic volunteer: “I wish that all the people who receive food baskets from me knew what joy they give me when I see the happiness in their eyes, and I wish all donors who enable this knew how great the sparkle they create is.”
Granot Center ignite many sparks of joy to people who have so little joy in their lives, and each spark is caused by you and you alone: thanks to your open hands and open hearts. So remember, your donation helps us help them, and don’t forget you put something of your own heart in each and every food basket.