IMPORTANCE OF GRATITUDE HAS BEEN PALPABLE FOR TWO YEARS
For me, as someone who has worked in the human services field for 20-plus years, as a mom, a wife, a sister and a friend, as a social worker who works to center justice and equity in my everyday actions, the last two years have been a stark reminder of the importance of gratitude.
For the last 12 years, I have worked at Jewish Family Service of San Diego, a human service organization that seeks to uplift the entire community. We provide classes and workshops for parents, food and nutrition assistance for struggling families, legal services for immigrants, help for the unhoused and housing insecure, and much more. Most nights when driving home from the office, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for our team of more than 400 staff and thousands more volunteers for their dedication to making our community stronger, healthier and more resilient.
I am moved by the stories of the individuals and families we serve, from the single mother who managed her way through months of the pandemic by working a full-time job while juggling parenting and home schooling her children when schools were shut down to the
90-year-old Holocaust survivor who found himself suddenly without the in-person aid he depended on for social support.
I am also moved by the resilience of these individuals and the courage it takes to keep going when it doesn’t seem like life is going to get any easier.
I am grateful for our government, community and philanthropic partners that make the work of the human services sector possible. And I am grateful for work projects that serve and inspire — from our support to the dwindling number of Holocaust survivors in Southern California and a publication of their life lessons, to our rides offered to older adults to get their vaccine and booster shots, the millions of meals we have provided to individuals, and our immigration staff which has worked around the clock to provide tens of thousands of asylum seekers with respite, shelter and legal assistance.
There are times when I look back to March 2020 and it is hard to remember who I was then — who we all were then — because it is clear that I am — we all are — forever changed. In recognizing the lives lost and lives forever changed by this pandemic, I am grateful for the opportunity to do better, do more, and remember each and every day to be thankful for the little things, for in many ways they have become the big things.
To every person who has been on the front lines during this pandemic — the essential workers, the educators, the human service and public health workers — to the folks who have centered the health and well-being of our community, often more than they were able to center their own families and friends, I am so grateful. And I am beyond thankful to be part of a team, an organization and a community that give me hope that brighter, more just and equitable days are ahead.