How has REI helped you give back

[Thomas Weidner]

With today being thanksgiving and thinking of all of the things I am thankful for. I think it would be nice to hear from the BP community about how your REI have helped you give back. Whether it is helping your community, a charity, or any other way of giving back please share your stories. Give us your reasons what truly drives you for the next deal other than a dollar. Whether you are a beginner or have been doing this for years. I believe this could truly inspire someone to push forward through there fears and do a deal so they then could pay it forward. Have a great day and be thankful!

[Joe Villeneuve]

First, Happy Thanksgiving to all who are reading this.

Second, since it is Thanksgiving...what the heck are all of you doing here today!  LOL?

Third, This is a great topic, and I think it must strike home with many here.  There's a reason why so many of us are here, unpaid, so often, answering questions for others...and getting answers too.  It isn't only for business reasons, since everything any entrepreneur does has business somewhere connected (not that it is the first reason for doing).

That "giving back" is so important to everyone's "internal acceptance system".  When you see, or in this case read, the success stories of others that you/we have had a hand in, there is a gratification that goes beyond the dollars we have made (and lost) doing the same things the "others" have or are going to do.  There's a piece of us that extends into them, and we are a part of their success.  Personally, and I know many others here feel the same way, once our "financial" need has been achieved, there is no greater satisfaction, no greater success, than in the success of others we have had a hand in...the "internal" need.

Our personal net worth is not, and can never be measured, by "$$$$"...We can't take it with us. 

Our net worth is measured, in the end, by what we've left behind...and in "who" we've left it.  It's our legacy.  It's the "equity" of our lives...and if it has any true value, long after we're gone, it continues to appreciate, and is appreciated, by everyone we have meet.

Sorry about bringing my soapbox to work today (LOL), but this question made me think, and...

Again, Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.