The Golden Rule is ancient and modern, secular and religious, personal and common. It is the universal principle of treating others the way we want to be treated.
The idea of dedicating a day to the celebration of practice of the Golden Rule was initiated by a collaborative in Interfaith Peace Building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on April 05, 2007. They put out a call to all citizens of the world and many organizations, including the United Nations, to join them in proclaiming the day and living everyday according to the teaching of the Golden Rule in order to make our world better and more peaceful for all.
Since then, about 700 organizations in 165 countries have joined in proclaiming Golden Rule Day. A request for a United Nations declaration of Golden Rule Day is pending before the General Assembly.
Squamish Multifaith Association joined this collaborative and decided to issue a Golden Rule Challenge, as a way of inviting a community response and celebrating the many acts of kindness and thoughtfulness that are easing the burden on others and on our shared environment, especially during this challenging time.
This call was put out on April 1, and we will be collecting stories throughout April. In celebration of Golden Rule Day, I would like to showcase an organization that looks after some of our most vulnerable community members.
I checked in with Emma Cox, manager of the Squamish Foodbank, to see how they were faring and if she had any examples of how practice of the Golden Rule was helping them during this time.
I was blown away by her response.
“As the demand increases for our services, our volunteers are putting themselves at risk to continue serving the community at this great time of need. Our volunteers are donating even more hours of their time to prepare approximately 120+ food hampers to be safely distributed at each food bank day so participants do not need to enter the food bank. We have had an overwhelming number of community members contact us wanting to volunteer, deliver hampers or donate funds or food,” she said.
And that is just for starters. Businesses small and large are pitching in to help:
The Sunflower Bakery Cafe downtown baked and donated 40 loaves of fresh bread for their last food bank day.
The RCMP is doing a big food drive which is being delivered to the food bank next Thursday.
Nesters Squamish have ordered enough food for the next food bank day on 14 April that they will be donating.
The owner of the dog-walking company in town ‘Dog Haven on Raven’ (Michelle) and two of her employees have taken over the deliveries for the pre-existing hamper program, as volunteers.
Blue Water Concepts is doing a special Easter Food Drive, April 05, 07, and 09. Here is a link to the Facebook event page where people can get involved:
https://www.facebook.com/events/670064617154098/
Collectively as a community, donations to the food bank over the last two weeks have reached almost $25,000.
It has been said that the true test of a society is how it looks after its most vulnerable members. Squamish is passing the test with Golden Colours.
For more stories, visit our website https://squamishmultifaith.org and check out our most recent posts, or visit our Facebook Page Squamish Multifaith Group.