Think Local this Holiday Season

By: Eugenia Finizio

Every Thanksgiving break, my family and I drive to a farm in Pennsylvania and cut down a Christmas tree.  It is always cold, there is always free hot chocolate, and my brother always insists on choosing a tree that is two feet taller than our ceiling.  The cutting of a real Christmas tree is a tradition in my family, but another, perhaps even more important, tradition grew out of this annual trip into the country.

One year while driving to the farm we got lost.  Pennsylvania is full of wide-open spaces and hills, and a few wrong turns here and there and you can end up in Amish country.  This particular year, when I was about ten years old, we ended up in a trailer park.  Instead of pulling out the GPS and getting out of there, my dad decided to drive us through the community.  I had never seen anything quite like it.  The trailers were dilapidated, the toys outside the houses were broken, and the grass looked as if it hadn’t been cut in years.  Through later research, my dad found out that most of the people living in the park were unemployed or battling alcoholism.  At just ten years old, I realized that not even an hour away from my comfortable Pittsburgh home, there were children who would receive nothing for Christmas. 

Every year since we discovered the trailer park, we drive through it on our way to the farm.  Not to mock the inhabitants, but rather to humble ourselves.  Not to pity the people who live in these trailers, but to remember that not everyone lives in a suburb or gets to attend college.  Some years the trailers look tidy and cheerful, and others they look a little disheveled.

I think of this trailer park most during the holiday season because it is the time when people are willing to give a little money or time to give back to those less fortunate.  I think of this trailer park specifically because it is in my country, my state, and even in my county at home.  With all of the causes that we can give money to this holiday season, many of them will be international.  There is a need for help across the globe, and don’t get me wrong, international causes are just as worthy of donations as local ones, but sometimes we as a nation forget to look into our own backyards.  We read the national newspapers, we watch CNN, and we see commercials about causes around the world.  But sometimes we fail to recognize the need that exists right here in our own country.  We become blind to the impact we can make close to home.

So this holiday season, I ask you to think local.  It’s not about the money, it’s about the concept of caring for people that live around the corner, down the road, and a few miles into the Pennsylvania countryside.