With Thanksgiving over, we now begin to turn our attention to the holiday season which is just a few weeks away. It almost seems impossible to fathom, doesn’t it?
The season, in its own way, can be stressful, especially when times are rough. So we can only begin to imagine that for countless families, the 2020 season will be extremely stressful.
So many families will see a season that is vastly different than it was in 2019.
There’s the family where breadwinners no longer have jobs, through no fault of their own, because of the pandemic.
There’s the family who lost a loved one unexpectedly from COVID-19.
There’s the family whose small business is now closed, perhaps never to reopen, because of a virus no one even knew about a year ago.
We could go on and on here with scenarios that were almost impossible to think of just a year ago, but are now reality.
There are scenarios where the very people who would be among the first to make donations so that others might have better holidays are now the ones who are on the other side of things, in need of food, clothing, gifts for their children.
As if 2020 couldn’t get much worse for so many, it instantly did as soon as the calendar turned to December, with Christmas just 20+ days away.
And so with all of this in mind, it is here and now where the generosity of this community always shines. Never has the need been greater. And we hope and pray that generosity will appear again as we at The Observer — and other organizations — collect gift cards for those who have hit hard times. Card donations of any amount will make a difference this year in ways we could have never dreamed.
Never has there been a better time to be a Woman or Man for Others.
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Kevin A. Canessa Jr. is the editor of and broadcaster at The Observer, an organization he has served since 2006. He is responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper and website, the production of the e-Newspaper, writing several stories per week (including the weekly editorial), conducting live broadcasts on social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, and X, including a weekly recap of the news — and much more behind the scenes. Between 2006 and 2008, he introduced the newspaper to its first-ever blog — which included podcasts, audio and video. Originally from Jersey City, Kevin lived in Kearny until 2004, lived in Port St. Lucie. Florida, for four years until February 2016 and in March of that year, he moved back to Kearny to return to The Observer full time. Click Here to send Kevin an email.