A young man was commuting to all the departments around the store to say his goodbyes and to share what he’d learned from the particularly seasoned adults who’d taken him under wing while he was employed there. It was his last day before moving to Texas for college. While shopping, it happened I was close enough to hear a few of these encounters, each of which had brought his coworkers to tears. His sincerely thankful spirit was so overwhelming, even listening from a distance, I got a lump in my throat at how he articulated specific fond memories of their work together. He left his trail of gratitude behind from hardware to appliances to gardening. I learned a few things myself yesterday:-Renewed hope in today’s youth. -Home Depot’s incalculable loss. -Somewhere in Texas, this boy is gonna change a lotta lives.-I’d like to meet his parents.

I’m neither a poor man, nor a man of wealth, but as I feel this gripping economic pinch becoming a grope, surely poorer earners are all but asphyxiated by the inflationary prices of everything. I see it in senior clients down to one meal a day, pawning possessions to pay monthly rent increases, working families using up savings and losing financial ground faster than they can make it up. Everyone is cutting here and there but can only do it so long until price increases compound and there’s nothing left to cut anymore. More people are homeless now than ever before, most for the first time ever. In my job, the stories arrive firsthand at our door and we help in all ways we are able, but for many, it’s not enough to preserve even the most basic of human rights and needs. Anxiety, depression and mental health problems create fertile grounds for reemerging addictions and ways of coping that offer no hope whatsoever. Some things need to change and soon. Use your vote for change.While Rome was burning, Nero was merely an impulsive tyrant home in his villa doing nothing.That’s not an option anymore.