Today, on the thanks giving day, while many of us will be enjoying times with families, neighbors and friends, many others will be struggling to bring foods on the dinner tables. I personally know quite a few families who have been directly affected by the current hard economic situation. It’s good that many of the big national charities are using today to collect food from the fortunate ones and feed the ones who go hungry around the area, however, I wonder how sustainable such efforts are throughout the year.

Charity starts at home. Thus instead of thinking big at the national level, we can make a lot of difference if we take care of our local communities ourselves, first. In our district, their are institutions and charities who we can work with to alleviate the hardships that many of our neighbors go through on a daily basis. The two charities in our neighborhood I know of are: Compassion Center on the Erie St. and the Pregnancy Center on the Greenbelt Rd. There are other local faith based institutions, such as Churches, Synoagouges and Mosques who also do quite a few charitable work for the local needy families.