It's time for my semi-annual, preachy blog post on do-goodery. In the midst of awards season, election fever, and the change in weather, I want to remember to get out there and make change happen.

My husband and son were actively involved in the Stop Hunger Now! packaging of meals held here in the Raleigh area last week. "Dash" got to run bags of meal back and forth...so he was happy. Our group packaged over 40,000 nutritious meals. Not shabby for a couple of hours of work.

My friends support the JDRF and their annual walk. What a good reason to stroll about in the Fall!

Banned Books Week is next week. Note your favorites on the splash page. Do what you can to learn about how to keep libraries free, open spaces for us all.

Regardless what you support or don't, you should vote. It feels, especially now as we enter troubled financial waters and tight races, that our one vote is insignificant. And it is. But we still get to do it, and that is something. Not everyone does. You can register with Barack or John, or you can rock. Editor's note: These sites are SUCH an improvement over having to find some out of the way library back in the day to go prove who you were and how old you were, etc.! This Internets thing is really wonderful!

There is a lot of talk, and will be in the next month, about faith-based organizations and the work they do to help the underpriveledged. I am an employee of a faith-based organization of sorts. I also have mixed feelings about such organizations. But I will not deny, and I will not have you malign, the important work they do for the least of these. At my place of work alone we are focusing on Stop Hunger Now, WIHN, Wee Care, Urban Ministries, ZOE, and a Red Cross blood drive. And that's just this week. Most folks I know are equally busy at their places of worship...it is really heartening, when you are low, to look around at the good work people do. I'm proud of you, friends - you know who you are!

That's enough preaching for one day. This all comes from me feeling so tiny and small, that the problems are so overreaching, and that the People StyleWatch didn't lift me up like I hoped it would. Sometimes I need to stop and remember that there are ways that I can bring hope and change, if only for a few, if only for a little while.