An Act of Charity
We’re back from New Orleans! Had a great time there although we ran into a few storms which made it difficult to walk around. I’m glad to be back home though and to start the research/planning process of our move. My husband started work today but we’re not sure exactly when he’ll officially be on the road. Once he starts traveling, we’ll make a trip to Seattle (which takes the top spot in places we are considering to move to). When it comes to places with no state income tax, Seattle is really the only one on the list that we are both willing to move to. Las Vegas comes in second but I don’t find it to be a family friendly place. Ideally, we’d love to move to California but I think we’ll wait a few years for that because if we moved now, we probably wouldn’t be able to afford a very nice place to live in there.
So back to New Orleans. We went with a group of friends which made the trip lots of fun. But it was heartbreaking to see such poverty everywhere. We also went to the lower ninth ward which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina and it was really an experience of a lifetime. I recommend stopping by there to anyone who visits the New Orleans area. It’s incredibly sad but it brings you closer to the event and allows you to see how terrible the destruction was. It’s been 4 years and the area still has not been rebuilt. Homelessness was everywhere and it made us wonder how many of the homeless were victims of the hurricane.
We went out for lunch on our last day and decided to pack all our leftovers into a box and offer it to the next person we saw who could use a good meal. Just seeing the look on the man’s face when our friend handed him the box and how he immediately began eating ravenously was one of the greatest feelings. It felt so good to know we weren’t wasting food by leaving it at the restaurant and that we were offering food to someone who was hungry. I encourage all of you to consider doing something like this the next time you are at a restaurant and haven’t finished your meal. There are plenty of people out there who would love to finish it for you!
The only thing that disturbed me was the fact that we had to use a styrofoam box for the food. I doubt it got recycled. I’m going to have to start carrying biodegradable boxes or something!
Before I sign off, I’d like to share a photo I took of steps leading to where there once was a house. It was a heartbreaking image for me.
December 15th, 2009 at 9:48 am
What a beautiful post. Your simple act of charity will come back to you tenfold.
December 15th, 2009 at 9:50 am
My husband and I went to New Orleans in February 2005. We had the best vacation and fell in love with the city. On our plane ride home, we commented that we would definitely go back maybe even the following year. When Katrina hit, we sobbed for the city. We have not made it back yet, we have since had 2 children,(In feb 05, we were childless) but hope to some day.