It’s hard sometimes to figure out where the weekend went. I’m retired, so for the most part what day of the week it is shouldn’t make a difference, but it does. Things are different on Saturday and Sunday than they are on Monday through Friday. More people are off work so there are more people on the streets, shopping in the stores, driving on the roads. Also, many special events are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday; bake sales, craft shows, car Drive-In’s, or rodeos.

Saturday I helped put on a bake sale. It was a benefit for a local friend who’s mother has alzheimer’s and they need to find a suitable residence for her. She also runs a small farm, works in a doctor’s office and has two daughters in college. The youngest daughter, exhausted from caring for grandmother, going to school and working, ran off the road not far from here. Her injuries were so severe she had to be airlifted to Phoenix where along with healing the other injuries, she had to have surgery to fix her crushed pelvis. She was driving the only vehicle the family had and it was totaled.

Now more than $100,000 dollars in medical bills later, my friend is in desperate need. She needs a car to get to work, get groceries, transport her daughter to and from the hospital, and to take care of her farm.

What did we do? We held a bake sale. Lame, I know. But when people who stopped by the table heard her story they were most generous. We earned $338. It may help with the down payment on a new truck, who knows.

This isn’t the only friend in need. Another friend found out her mother has a rare type of brain cancer. So a technologically adept fellow friend set up an on-line donation site.

We all have these friends, their lives in total disarray through a series of misfortunes piling on like football players in a tackle or through medical issues or… well all sorts of problems. We ask ourselves, what can I do? My $10 isn’t going to make a difference. So often, we do nothing, ignoring the friend even though we feel bad about their whole situation.

It is overwhelming. We feel helpless. All I can say is, do something. Send a card, donate the $10, hold a bake sale. Even though the donation isn’t large, it means something to the friend with the problem. That simple card may come on a day when they’re feeling like the whole world is against them and give them the hope that one day, things will get better.

So how about it? Have you been putting off the offer of a helping hand? Don’t delay, help today.