For the first three days of this week, we spent our time at the Lackawanna Food Pantry helping out Catholic Charities. We packed bags filled with taxable goods that can't be acquired with food stamps. By the end of it we had completed around 610 bags stuffed to the brim with everything from shampoo and conditioner to playing cards. It was great! Christmas bags were tucked in every place we could find and my fingers were covered with blisters from all the bags I had tied. We all felt pretty accomplished, but something was missing. While I knew that we were making a difference, our experience was lacking the human interaction that I was told about. This all changed when we brought our services to an organization called Ladies of Charity.
As someone who has a family of mostly girls, I've known some pretty strong women, but nothing prepared me for what I witnessed with the Ladies of Charity. The organization is run almost exclusively by very elderly women. I'm not talking about women in their mid-60s who have just retired and are looking for something to fill there time, I'm talking about 90 year old women running there own thrift store and collection of donated goods. In the hallway entrance, there are old photos on the wall of all of the presidents of Ladies of Charity over the years. Some of these photos go all the way back to the 1940s. I met some of the most astounding people in this building who had been volunteering their time for longer than I've been alive. They help victims of abuse get new starts by providing the resources for another home, they give out supplies to hundreds of school children who can't afford it, they provide Christmas toys to low income families with Toys for Tots, and they do it all with a smile on their face. I heard there stories and admired the work they put into their job. Iv'e never seen anything nearly as inspiring as the women over at Ladies of Charity.
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