At Thanksgiving, the blessing that I am most thankful for is the community of friends and family.

Trophies, certificates suitable for framing, and cash are all nice awards, but they have a couple of shortcomings.  1) They usually don’t arrive until long after the fact.  2) There are always questions about who really deserved the reward and what (political) motives were involved.  On the other hand, an unforced Thank You makes me feel appreciated right now and lets me know that what I just did was meaningful.

One of the unfair things about life is that the people whose job puts them in the spotlight tend to get most of the awards (and the higher pay), while the people who work in the background tend to get ignored.  The maintenance staff, cafeteria workers and bus drivers make contributions to our school that usually don’t get recognized.  That makes a Thank You to them all the more valuable.