The Importance of the Day

Every year around this time is the Boy Scouts of America Scouting for Food event, when bags are dropped off at people’s houses by Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts alike and are picked up the following week filled with food to be donated to local charitable organizations for distribution. It’s a good cause and usually runs pretty well. This year, though, my little corner of the planet didn’t get a bag to fill. This was fine because I’ve been missed before and have easily supplied my own from the bunch of paper and plastic bags I’m constantly trying to recycle. However, no one came to collect my bagged items. I had called early in the day to alert them that I hadn’t gotten a bag and had three to be picked up, giving both my name and location. I was told someone would be there to pick them up. I waited until late afternoon and when that someone never came, I called to find out the drop-off point. On my way down my street, I found four others whose filled bags hadn’t been retrieved. This was not a good sign. I took two of the bags where I could contact the donators and ask if they wanted their bags taken over with mine. My arrival to an empty parking lot said that the event was over, although there were still two gentlemen there to take my donations and give me a thank you.

I found myself upset with kids who hadn’t dropped off bags to my entire section of street and then didn’t collect donations along the street where they did leave bags. How many other places had they missed? I was upset with parents who weren’t instilling in their children the importance of completing this task, of making sure they truly scouted for this food from empty to filled bag. Values, people, values. I was upset with the person I called earlier in the day who said that someone would arrive to pick up my cans and boxes of precious food cargo that I had so diligently gone out and bought for this event starting back in September. Waa, waa, waa.

Yes, that was the point when I realized I was whining about things I knew nothing about. They could have run out of bags to leave. There could have been miscommunication about whether a particular street had been checked for donations. The person I spoke with this morning may have been in the middle of a swirl of activity that likely was going on when I called. Scouts, their parents, scout leaders and staff are human and imperfect just like the rest of us. If you’re not involved in this huge process, you can’t really appreciate the effort that’s gone into it even when you read about it the next day in the newspaper.

When I shut up and listened to the caring side of my brain, the side that knew the importance of purchasing extra foodstuffs and donating them, I realized my error in being upset with others when it was myself I should be upset with. We’re all part of this good deed and if we have to do more than just put out the bag with food in it, then so be it. It’s the thought and effort that count when it comes to helping others. Just a little reminder to myself.

And you.