What’s The Matter With Kids Today?

Kids. That word usually begins or ends a diatribe about people who are currently children or teens. There’s supposed to be something wrong with them. At present, the word is that they spend all their money on video games and all their time texting and they have no attention span, no attention span at all.

Someone forgot to tell the very young supporters of St. Anthony’s how kids behave.

Amy does not spend all her time texting. She spend a lot of it in December organizing a coat drive. She collected 500 coats for St. Anthony’s guests, enough so that her father had to rent a truck to deliver them at Curbside. Amy is 10.

Anthony is about the same age. He did not spend all his money on video games. He received $50 for Christmas and spent it on socks for the guests at St. Anthony’s. He was one of many people, most of them much older, who helped us fill 2500 Christmas bags with a pair of new socks.

Angelo, 8 years old, saved his allowance all year. He came in a few days before Christmas with a family member and $100 in cash. That’s the food for about 227 meals. One-tenth of all the meals we served at St. Anthony’s on Christmas day. Saving it must have required a certain amount of attention, not to mention self-discipline.

Kids are much the same as other people; they come in all mind sets and temperaments. At St. Anthony’s, we’re lucky. We get to meet the Amy’s, Anthony’s, and Angelo’s. From what we’ve seen, the season looks bright and the future very hopeful. Happy New Year.