A few weeks ago, I called Brent Payne (founder of AVANT) and said, "Hey, man. We're both going to be 40 this year. What are we going to do for our birthdays?"

He said, "Y'know, I'm thinking about doing something different. I think I'd like to take a trip somewhere where people are in need and....well...I don't know....get my hands dirty."

And that's what we did. One of the leaders in the company (Nancy) contacted a charity organization called Family-To-Family and they helped us arrange a relief trip to New Orleans to do some work in an area of the city that's still struggling with the effects of Hurricane Katrina and poverty in general.

It was an amazing experience. I confess that, in the area of helping others, Jessica and I have tended to be "check-writers". We've contributed to different organizations over the years. We're also very excited about the work that World Vision does; we support several children through their efforts each month. (For the last several years, a portion of every sale we make goes to support World Vision's efforts).

But there's something about actually SHOWING UP and doing the work occasionally. I'd never done it before. So, I was pretty excited about the trip.

We arrived in New Orleans on the 27th of July and started the work on the morning of the 28th. The three big tasks that we wanted to accomplish was to a.) build, plant and shelter some box gardens at the community center; b.) to frame in, dry-wall, and stock a community food pantry; and c.) "adopt" ten families who need assistance with groceries. (For that last goal, we worked with a local church who will help supervise, purchase and distribute the food for us.)

Needless to say it was an amazing trip. The people were absolutely amazing. (When we arrived, there was a kid's camp going on for the kids in the Lower 9th Ward. They literally SWARMED us with hugs! They were so excited that we were there.)

Plus, I can't remember when I last did manual labor in 102º temperature! (The community center wasn't air-conditioned but we had lots of fans indoors). The food pantry involved some skills that I didn't have so Patrick and I spent much of our time building a frame to install sun-filtering material over the garden area. I have to say that I was pretty surprised that it turned out as well as it did. Not bad for a couple of marketers who haven't held hammers in a few years!

Anyway, the purpose of this article isn't to say "Oooh...look what we did. Aren't we great!" Not at all. If anything, the major point I want to make is this: it is far easier than you can imagine to help someone who's less fortunate than you.

In fact, one more quick story: when we went shopping for the actual food to put in the pantry, we had a grocery list of items and we just multiplied everything times ten (x10) so that we could provide for ten families.

So, if the list said "five cans of tuna" we bought a total of 50. If the list said "two tubes of toothpaste" we bought 20. A bag of flour and cornmeal turned into ten of each.

In other words, we bought a BUNCH of food!

Guess how much it cost? Almost exactly $700. That's all.

I was blown away. When I stood at the register with Brent watching the lady total everything up, I figured it was going to be at least $1,500.

When we saw the total was only $700, Brent looked at me and said, "Man, we could have bought even more stuff".

The point is this: it doesn't cost as much as you think to be a blessing to someone who's in need. Or even TEN families in need!

So, if nothing else, the point of this article is to simply highlight some awareness: we are all abundantly blessed. And the best way to show appreciation for what we have is to just assist someone else who doesn't have as much as we do.

Now that we're back home, my oldest son is asking if there's some projects here locally that he can volunteer for. He went to Costa Rica on a relief trip last year and it affected him profoundly. So, we're excited to continue doing things like this in our own area.

It's a simple thing to do. Think about it!