Rebekkah, look at these,” my sister Roberta called. We were browsing in Goodwill, and she’d found an entire rack of never-been-worn men’s button-down shirts. “They have the original tags.”
I looked. We could get the shirts for our brother, but they were all size medium, and he wore extra large.
“What if we bought them for the veterans at the new homeless shelter?” Roberta suggested. We both work at our local VA hospital, and we were having a fundraising drive to support the shelter.
READ MORE: HOW A YOUNG GIRL FOUNDED AN ANIMAL SHELTER
Great idea. It’s hard for the guys to get back on their feet when they don’t have good clothes for job interviews. These looked professional and wouldn’t even need to be ironed.
We stuck a “Thank you for your service” note in the pocket of each shirt, and dropped them off the next day. Several weeks later, I ran into one of the veterans from the shelter. He was wearing a very nice striped shirt.
“Can you believe I got this at the shelter?” he said. “It was my size, and brand new to boot. Even had the tags!” I just smiled at him and said, “Well, isn’t that something!”
Did you enjoy this story? Subscribe to Guideposts magazine.
