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HOUSTON (FOX 26) - How did you celebrate this Giving Tuesday? Some bought a meal for themselves to help benefit someone else at three Houston Raising Cane’s locations. The restaurant is donating 15 percent of what Giving Tuesday customers spend to the Houston Public Library Foundation.
We caught up with some volunteers dicing veggies and preparing food at the Houston Food Bank. They weren’t chopping onions, so why did they have tears in their eyes? "A child shouldn’t have to be hungry. They just shouldn’t have to be hungry. As parents it’s our job to provide for them. You’re going to make me cry,” Kristi Johnson says looking at her co-worker. Johnson is with a work group volunteering at the Houston Food Bank on Giving Tuesday after Yvonne Thomas told her colleagues, "Let’s just be a blessing to someone else.” They all got together and did just that.
"We were both, very blessed to be able to provide for our children, but the idea of somebody going to bed hungry is really heartbreaking. I can’t imagine how (parents) feel to send their kids to bed without a full belly. It’s just heartbreaking,” says Johnson.
Silas Borden is volunteering at the food bank with a different work group. ”It’s devastating when you think about it. Think about Houston and how big it is, but yet there’s still thousands that don’t have food everyday. No. That breaks your heart and that’s why we’re here."
"Today has just been amazing. We have hundreds of volunteers out helping at the Houston Food Bank,” say Heather Icenogle, Houston Food Bank Director of Annual Giving and Events.
At the Houston Area Women’s Center, some volunteers are answering phones for the domestic abuse hotline, others are reaching into their wallet. "Your donation can go to things like our hotline. Our hotline fields more than 100 calls a day,” explains HAWC Chief Marketing & Development Officer Chau Nguyen.
A Houston law firm has agreed to double every donation you give to the Houston Area Women’s Center on Giving Tuesday. "The folks who give here are giving the gift of life often times. Our friends at Hogan Lovells is offering a $20,000 match dollar for dollar."
The Houston Texans have agreed to triple every online donation made to the Houston Food Bank on Giving Tuesday, up to $100,000.
If you’re interested in volunteering at the Houston Food Bank, click here. For information on the Houston Area Women’s Center, click here.