We’re enjoying a stretch of good weather for any time of year, not just the week before Thanksgiving. I’ll get out for a walk after I post this communique. Way too nice not to do so on a sunny mid-fall day.
Darker, quieter times of the year have arrived. Even with sunrises approaching seven and darkness falling at four, the emerging lights from the blackness of this past year have started shimmering though in the world of the soybean field. What’s renewed hope and a sense of purpose for me has been volunteering and getting busy with a couple of organizations, one for voter education and one for the environment.
The volunteer gig is for the regional food bank. I’ve joined the advocacy alert mailing list so I can keep informed of legislation impacting SNAP benefits to those who need them and can take actions with emails and calls. My other self appointed task: take my experiences with food sensitivities that I’ve dealt with this past year and compile lists of resources (websites, YouTube channels, cookbooks) for food bank clients. That took a while. I wanted to make sure that the ingredients used would be easily available at local grocery stores, not outrageously expensive (tiger nut flour at $13 and change for a two pound bag from Amazon, anyone?), and that any information was based in common reality.
That was fun.
And the two events by the voter advocacy group were, too. One was the yearly general meeting this past June. The other was a baby products drive to support a local pantry located in a city that acts as a hub between three other ones where people who made the walk from Central and South America will be resettled (I hate the term “migrant.” It just seems so demeaning and other-ing and divisive). We managed to collect enough supplies to welcome forty babies to the area. And non-mom of humans that I am, I found out that babies can use at least eight diapers a day.
Paraphrasing Cheap Pete, one of the characters on “In Living Color,” “Good Lawd, that’s a lot o’diapers!”
(Can you put those on your list of items to donate to your local pantry? Thanks!)
On the environmental front, I re-upped earlier this year for the Sierra Club. The events of interest this past summer fell on days when I couldn’t spend any appreciable time outside because of my skin still being too touchy.
But next year will be another story, I hope, as the glimmers continue.
The Wolf Mama's Kitchen 
Thank you for helping, on behalf of one who can’t seem to manage it yet.
So happy you’re becoming involved in some great causes!