Volunteer Time Provided Higher Return On Charity Investments

My wife and I had a lazy philanthropic regiment—annual hundred dollar checks to universities, animal welfare organizations, and Down syndrome societies. We bought Girl Scout cookies and added a dollar to our grocery bill for breast cancer research, and tucked a dollar into the Salvation Army kettles at Christmastime. That was about it.
One day my wife undertook making brown-bag lunches for Primavera, an organization that provided assistance to the jobless, homeless, and down trodden of our Tucson, Arizona community. The lunches were for workers who would be sent out to perform day labor assignments.
Instructions for preparing the lunches were very specific: two sandwiches, each fitted into a sandwich baggies (no easy task), single wrapped cookies, a piece of fruit, all stuffed into a luncheon bag. Primavera supplied mustard and mayonnaise in takeout restaurant packets. They also supplied a small bottle of water which we began donating by the case.
Now, time as well as, money was required to perform this monthly task of preparing forty sandwiches. It cost under fifty dollars but took about five hours by the time we went to the supermarket, prepared the lunches and drove them to Primavera which was a good fifteen miles from our home.
My wife and I alternated the months that we preformed the tasks.
It felt good to give of our time and not just money for a change. Then one day the benefits of our charity connected with our lives in a direct way.
After twelve wonderful, loving years our first pet Shih Tzu passed away and we decided to inter him at the local pet seminary. When we arrived for a brief ceremony, I ascertained that a day worker from Primavera had dug the little grave. Alongside him I saw a brown-bag lunch, one that I most likely had prepared. As sad a moment for us, with the act of our charity clearly visible, it brought a touch of joy to our heavy hearts.
Note: Primavera, has already, or will be receiving a donation from RedRoom for the last feature I wrote that has been published in AOL Travel.