NATIONAL MAKE A DIFFERENCE DAY – Fourth Saturday in October

National Make A Difference Day is an annual community service event which is held on the fourth Saturday in October.

Millions of people have united in the common mission to improve the lives of others.

USA Weekend is a national weekend newspaper magazine which is distributed through more than 800 newspapers in the United States and published by Gannett Company as a sister publication to USA Today. USA Weekend’s focus is on social issues, entertainment, health, food and travel. USA Weekend, along with Points of Light, have been sponsoring National Make a Difference Day, the largest national day of community service, for more than twenty years.

Do what you can to make a difference and use #MakeADifferenceDay to post on social media.

National Make a Difference Day was created in 1992 by USA WEEKEND magazine and joined by Points of Light. Together they have sponsored the largest national day of community service for more than twenty years.

Am I the only one getting tired of all of the self-declared days, weeks and months? Today is also “nut day”, “smart is cool day”, “international stuttering awareness day” and “caps lock day”. I declare February 30 to be “awareness day awareness day” where people are forced to be aware of the overload of awareness days.

I learned a very important lesson about feeding, clothing, and giving blankets to the homeless. The homeless hate and fear government, because they are often at the receiving end of government abuse, mistreatment, and oppressiveness.

So government charity is not just ignored, but avoided. It always comes with a price. Usually to control their lives.

However, I did see a successful application of charity that was very well received and appreciated, helped a lot of people, and didn’t need government at all.

A group of churches banded together, then they asked the homeless people what they wanted. Then they got those things from their parishioners donations, and gave them away.

In winter, socks were very high on the list. As were blankets. The churches were widely praised and some of the homeless even gave them “thank you” cards.

And this angered government. They went so far as to ask the churches to stop and just send the homeless to the government for help. The churches knew the score, so declined. The government then tried to force the churches to stop.

Bad idea. The churches had a lot of pull, and quickly made the government back off. Since government couldn’t coerce them, it decided to roust the homeless from the city, and stop it that way.

It really distilled the truth of things.

Didn’t know anything about this day, but our Trail Life USA troop spent the morning at a farm that donates all proceeds to food banks.

Along with a couple other groups about 40 of us picked 40,000 lbs. of cabbage. They figure that to be 68,000 servings.

Just doing the job Americans won’t do, unless we’re volunteering of course.

The boys are required to perform 15 or 20 hours of service a year, depending on age. Most exceed that. My son is pushing 300

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