For years I have always given to street beggars because I felt blessed.  As a single mom I knew I needed to pay parts of my wages forward as a gift of gratitude.   I was thankful I had a job.  I was grateful I could scrape by and take care of me and my children without the aid of others.  Sure times were hard.  I could have used the money to do an activity with my kids.  However, the image of people standing in the frigged cold of Colorado begging always haunted me.  So, when I found extra (in reality there were no extras) I always shared with no strings attached.

But in this day and time panhandling has been kicked-up-a-notch!

I don’t give to panhandlers like the days of old but I do continue to give.  Normally my financial gifts are given to aid sick children or women fighting breast cancer.  But when I give to a panhandler I give to the person that has the most creative sign.  Because if I’m going to give a very small fraction of my hard-earned taxed dollars to a panhandler I need something in return!  Meaning, the person that gets my money, that it now non-taxed to him/her, they need to work for it in some-type of humane capacity.

And what took me down memory lane of giving to panhandlers is the video below of a man who is upset because he got scammed: