THINK Thanksgiving: Gifts That Keep on Giving

In 2006, I was blessed with the gift of being given a newspaper column in the much-loved Pelican Press newspaper in Sarasota, Florida. 

My first editor there, Phil Colpas, took a flier on an unknown writer and in the process, made my lifelong dream of being a weekly columnist come true.  After he left the paper, my editor was the amazing Rachel Hackney Brown (she's still producing local news with The Sarasota News Leader, covering Sarasota and Siesta Key --check it out!)

These two editors gave me a lot of leeway with my "Reality Chick" column -- which I truly appreciate to this day, because one of the ways they were super supportive led to a six-year fundraising mission to address hunger during the holidays in our community. 

Each November, they helped me publicize a "Pelanthropy" (get it? Pelican + Philanthropy = Pelanthropy) donation drive to benefit Sarasota's All Faiths Food Bank.

The Pelanthropy columns invited readers to make donations to All Faiths and I, in turn, committed to donating all my column-writing earnings for the month of November to the drive as well. In 2006 and 2007, Pelican Press Reality Chick readers donated nearly $7,500!

After I left the Pelican Press in 2008, I continued annual drives via my "Reality Online" blog and"Face Reality" Creative Loafing newspaper column (edited by Cooper Levey Baker now an editor at Sarasota Magazine);

and finally via my Sarasota Herald Tribune "Sense and the City" weekly column.

By the time I stopped appearing as a weekly print newspaper columnist in mid-2012, over the course of six years of Thanksgiving drive appeals, readers had donated nearly $14,000.  Wow!

Which brings us to 2020.

After a way too-long stretch without an in-print newspaper column, I've established my THINK by MC Coolidge -- and I'm back to weekly column writing for readers like you!.  And, yes, you guessed it: I'm also back with my annual drive for All Faiths.

If you want to participate in the 2020 THINK Thanksgiving drive, the most direct way is to click here: to make a donation online to All Faiths Food Bank and in the “How did you hear” option, select “other,” and type “MC Coolidge” in the box that pops up, and then put "MC Coolidge THINK Thanksgiving drive" in the "additional comments” section — like this:

If you'd like to extend the "gift" of your donation, you can also do it through a $30 paid subscription to THINK that you give to yourself or someone else.  You'll get or give a year's worth of thought-provoking essays PLUS help feed the hungry in our community because, on November 25, just like in years past, I'm going to send a donation to All Faiths equal to the amount of all paid subscriptions received in November by that date.  Here’s a link to give a gift subscription to someone else:

All Faiths is able to provide about five regular meals with every dollar donated, or a holiday family meal for about $28.  So an annual subscription to THINK can provide up to 150 individual meals or a Thanksgiving or December holiday meal with turkey and all the trimmings to a family of five.  Here’s a link if you’d like to sign up for a paid subscription for yourself:

Whether you subscribe or not, to get us all in the giving mood of the season, I offer up a story I've told previously in print, but that is just as relevant this year as any other -- perhaps even more so in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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The Man and the Can -- of Chef Boyardee

Two years ago, right around this time, I knocked off work late and drove to Publix to grab a sandwich and some coffee for the morning. As I stood in line waiting to pay, I noticed the man in front buying just one thing. “Sweet,” I thought.  “I’ll be out of here in a jiffy.” 

The cashier rang his item up and put it in a bag as the man swiped his card to pay. It was denied. A second try; the cashier reassuring, “This happens all the time.” A third try; nothing. The man, increasingly embarrassed.  The amount due was so small, I opened my wallet to pay at the same time the cashier said she’d get it herself. The man protested; “No, just forget it.”

I opened my change wallet, took out several quarters and said, “Look, I’ve got all this change; let me.”  He started to shake his head no again, but then, changing his mind, he looked at us, said a quiet “Thank you,” picked up his bag — with just the one item in it — and left.   

The cashier scooped up my money from the counter, and said, “Okay, I’ll let this be your good deed for today.” But I didn’t feel that good.  I felt kind of sick as I drove home. What was this man’s life? How long would that single purchase enable him to ward off hunger? Was it for him or for a child at home?

I want something so simple. I want no one to feel real, gnawing, demoralizing hunger. I don’t want a world where a man is humbled by the attempted purchase of a single can of Chef Boyardee. I want us all to have something to eat after a long day, and want everyone to have something yummy and nourishing to eat on special days … like Thanksgiving – which is just two weeks away.

For so many of us, Thanksgiving is a time when food is always abundant and delicious … except when it’s not.  This Thanksgiving, there will be countless people in our community without enough money or means to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Moms, dads, grandparents, single folks, children – all will be wondering if they’ll be able to be “normal” on this one day of the year when being normal simply means having enough to eat. 

It doesn’t have to be that way for our community.

If you can't donate, there are myriad opportunities for giving and helping others throughout the holiday season.  It doesn’t matter what route you take to get there: volunteering to sort food and stock shelves at a local food bank or charity -- fully masked up, of course!; collecting non-perishable goods and dropping them off at a nearby food bank; or preparing a meal yourself and delivering it to someone in need.

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The long-ago gift I received when I was hired at the Pelican Press has reverberated through the years not just for me as a writer and loving every minute of being a columnist -- but for the hundreds of fellow Sarasotans who have experienced the joy of giving to others by donating to All Faiths -- and for the hundreds of people in our community who were able to enjoy a family holiday made special or a hot meal when it mattered most.

Thanks for being a part of the gift of giving that never stops being re-gifted -- in one way or another!

xoxoxoxo

Want to do more?  Feel free to forward  this email to anyone (or lots of anyones) you think might want to sign up for THINK -- if they sign up for a paid subscription before the 25th, I'll match their sign-up with a direct donation to All Faiths!