I am what maybe considered "middle class". Not rich and not poor either. There are times we have tough time watching such unfortuante people without being able to help.

In addition to donations now and then, my family and I try to squeeze every possible amount of reusable/recycleable "garbage" and direct it towards the less fortunate. For example, when the car batteries die , we collect them in the garage. And one day when we need some helping hand, I ask one of them to do the job and pay him, then give him an additional gift of 1 or 2 car dead batteries or a sack of 50-100 Pepsi cans that he can sell and use the extra money.

With all that we still feel helpless !!! We can only do that much in a world where the rich gets richer and the poor become poorer.

However, sitting with these folks sometimes teach us that you can live with very little, and that most of our comforts are self-justified waste. And I also learnt a very unfortunate lesson about us humans. We may even envy the less fortuante for whatever scraps of happiness or fortune they may have. Case in point, one day a guy was working for me cutting a tree in front of my house. An obese guy standing nearby said " Oh, look at that. I wish I have his lean healthy body" !!!!