A Thanksgiving to Remember

It’s funny how most of the freshmen at school were excited to head home this weekend. We were excited to get away from Eickhoff food, and to sleep in the comfort of our own beds. We were excited for the chance to see family members who we haven’t had a chance to talk to since before move in. Somehow, in all of this excitement, we started to forget about those less fortunate, we started to forget about those individuals who have made our lives more interesting, who have caused us to rethink our situation and our form of giving.

Yesterday, at my family’s Thanksgiving Extravaganza (only countered by the Christmas Extravaganza, you think I’m kidding, the amounts of food are ridiculous), the adults were watching one of the many football games and a commercial appeared. This commercial talked about overweight children, and made a statement along the lines of “1 out of every 3 children is overweight,” (it may have been inaccurate, but I’m not sure, I only caught the end.) This commercial sparked a conversation about being overweight, and it led to observations from my uncle, the cop, about what he sees when he is on duty in the school zones. This then led to a conversation about the eating habits of young children in inner cities, places where fresh produce is hard to come by. Somehow I ended up spending most of that conversation, and part of my Thanksgiving, spouting out information about Camden, about our work in Camden.

I told my family about the lack of fresh produce, about the lack of clothing stores, about the diet, which consists of mostly convenience store food. I told them about working in the thrift store, about playing with the children; all the while I think that only bits were making it through. My desire to help is not fully understood by my family. They feel needs to help, but they don’t really think that helping directly is for them. For me, it has always been a given, I help directly when I can, which is partially why I want to join the Peace Corps after college.

This is why I am putting some of my dreams on hold, after college, until I can fulfill some other goals. It took my mother until last night to understand my dreams, once she read all of the literature I brought in order to “convince” her. I hope that she sees past the “oh this will look great on your medical school application,” and the “well your father and I have a say in this,” to my desire and need to help other people. I hope that my entire family, cousins and all, heard me talk about my work in Camden, about the people that we help, and that they can understand that helping directly is for them. It’s a bit of a lofty dream, but I hope that our experiences change them, if only the slightest, to want to do more for those that they don’t know.