After four years of resistence, this was the year that I finally brought my kids to my Sister Emily's favorite athletic event "The Turkey Trot." As my husband said, after my sister's heroic service to my family during Baby Tessy's illness "Give Aunt Emily anything she wants!" (My Sister is the one in the middle holding my daughter, Maria. She just finished running the Marine Corps Marathon last month.)
In previous years, I was rather smug about going to Mass in the morning and hosting Thanksgiving at my house in the afternoon. I felt like charity runs were a tad less important than eating Jesus himself. I ate humble pie when I realized this year that the food pantry which hosts this charity event, So Others Might Eat (SOME) was actually run by a Catholic priest.
I was totally shocked by the amount of money friends donated to this run. In one day, we raised what took 33 months for Jon and I to donate to the local Catholic food pantry from our own teeny pocketbook.
Thanks to my Protestant (and vegetarian!) Sister who found a way to combine charity on Thanksgiving Day with a super, yummy free-range Turkey from a local Amish farm.
