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If we all just gave a quarter

I awoke this morning with a thought in my head that wouldn’t go away. Hard as I tried to go back to sleep, a nagging little phrase kept bringing to mind more and more things that bombarded my brain until I dragged myself to my laptop and gave them a voice . . .What if we all gave a quarter?

I awoke this morning with a thought in my head that wouldn’t go away. Hard as I tried to go back to sleep, a nagging little phrase kept bringing to mind more and more things that bombarded my brain until I dragged myself to my laptop and gave them a voice . . .

What if we all gave a quarter?

What if every person who walked through the doors of Wal-Mart each day this holiday season put a quarter into the Salvation Army’s pot?

My modest estimate would be that upwards of 3,000 people a day pass by those troopers in red, and I’ve no doubt we could all spare one little quarter. That would be $750 in a single day.

Multiply that by the month of December and you’re already over $20,000 and that’s just at one little store with a donation so small we’d never miss it. How many lives could we change with the power of the masses and one little quarter?

And how about the masses at Superstore? What if just one-quarter of the shoppers there dropped an item into the food bank bin? It needn’t be much — a can of soup, a box of cereal, a bag of cookies to share with Santa.

Imagine how quickly that bin would fill up again and again if just a quarter of the people who walked past it cared enough to acknowledge it.

Oh, I know that sounds harsh — certainly we all care, right? But we’re busy and we didn’t think to buy something extra and now it’s too late because we’ve got to get our bounty to the car and scurry away before we think too much about it.

And while we’re talking about being busy, what if we gave a quarter of our free time to someone or something more meaningful than _________? Please fill in your own personal timesucker here — if you’re at a loss, try the TV, Facebook, magazines, sports, etc.

What if every time we stopped for our daily buzz at Timmy’s we put a quarter into the donation box on the counter? Imagine how many more kids would be going to camp next summer!

How about the smokers? Just a quarter of what we spend on cigarettes could change someone’s life.

What’s that I hear about not being able to afford it? Here’s a radical thought, cut back by 25 per cent!

Donate the difference to a good cause and you’ll be giving your lungs a gift at the same time.

Or what if we got crazy here and suggested that all of the VLT players and poker players and bingo players and horse players and yes, even the lotto ticket buyers took one quarter of what they gamble in a week and donated it to s

I’m heading out today to finish my Christmas shopping.

I’ve already overspent as usual, but I’m going to buy some extra gifts for the Christmas Bureau because I know that I can spare a little more to help out someone who might not have much of a Christmas this year.

My daughter’s room is overflowing with toys, movies, games and clothes that barely get touched — just a quarter of what I’ve spent on her will be enough to delight at least a half a dozen more kids and teach her the joy of giving and sharing at the same time.

Join me in sharing the wealth (and the love) and reap the benefits for yourself, your community and mankind. We all have it in us to give just a little bit more — just imagine if we all gave a quarter.

Shona Steele

Red Deer County