Hometown Stories - Three Years Later

Bristol native Briana Fillers, owner of Briana Fillers Consulting in downtown Bristol (and a former student of mine) took this pic of me beneath the Bristol sign as a prelude to beginning my Substack newsletter/column during the first week of April in 2022.

I am pleased and proud to convey that three years later we now have several hundred paid subscribers to Hometown Stories - many of whom I know personally as friends. I am grateful for your joining me on this journey, each and all of you. Together we are bettering Bristol – and hopefully you’re enjoying some unique local stories that are found absolutely nowhere else in all the world along the way.

(Remember, as a full subscriber you have access to ALL archived stories … now over 200 in total! And growing.)

The suggested subscription contribution is $50 annually (or $5 if monthly). Some give more and some give less. I am grateful for all of you - for your supporting our work in Bristol; helping those in need at various times throughout the year.

But whether or not you are able to support us monetarily in our worthy local causes, I promise to keep you on as a subscriber - as long as I have your email. I have never turned anyone down for their not being able to support us monetarily. 😊 Thank you all!

By the way, I am giving some serious thought to changing the name of my newsletter/column. Instead of “Hometown Stories”, the title “Live the Giving Life” might better fit the content I bring here each week. Yes, I often write what could properly be called “hometown stories”, but each story has always highlighted local people who inspire us all to “live a giving life”. The constant theme throughout virtually every column I have penned is how we might all seek to “live a giving life”.

Giving can be done in many different ways. As many ways as there are people beneath the sun.

Some people have money to give. Others have time.

We don’t all have the same amount of money, but we do all have the exact same amount of time in each day.

I don’t have much money. Never wanted much. In fact, I have lived my life in such a way as to intentionally not accumulate much money.

To the contrary, my son David, by helping so many people in his job as a CFP (Certified Financial Planner), has accumulated some nice material wealth for someone his age. He has earned every dime by hard honest work, and by helping others build their own material wealth and financial peace of mind as well. No one is ever “taken” by him.

In fact, David has one of the very few businesses I’ve ever seen with nothing but five star ratings on Google. Mytalleyfinancial.com. He primarily helps “near retirees” and entrepeneurs. All of his clients are apparently immensely satisfied for his helping them build a strong financial plan - and he often helps them save thousands on taxes that they may have previously been needlessly overpaying.

Yes, I have put in somewhat of a “plug” here for my son. Because I’ve seen him strive to “live a giving life”, I am happy to do it. He helps people reach their financial goals primarily so they can spend more time doing things with their families and those they love.

And when his clients reach a certain level of financial independence, my son is then eager to tell them another most amazingly empowering thing. “Now you get to do the fun part. You get to give some of it back to the community.”

It is unfathomable how much money David will be able to indirectly redirect toward local community charitable causes over the coming years, simply by promoting such a mindset within his clients. Millions? Tens of millions? Perhaps.

His father has no money to speak of. But his dear old dad has something else to give which is perhaps of even greater value. Time.

And with my time I visit and aid “the invisible poor” of our local community - those who are striving hard to raise their families right and work hard, yet are still barely making it on a daily basis. Having friendships with jail inmates, the homeless, and Bristol’s wealthiest families - a complete cross section of society - I find myself in the somewhat uniquely honorable position of providing a link between the poorest of the poor and the financially well-to-do in our good town.

I have found that my fellow citizens with financial means really do want to help those in need, they just don’t want their hard-earned money to go “wasted”. I am there to see that their monetary help is “well invested” in needy people who are trying hard (always with the admonition to “pass it on” in some way, some day, to someone else in need - which I’ve seen many of them do).

Both time and money are often needed to sustain and grow good causes. This publication itself depends on both. Together we make a wonderful partnership (the readers and yours truly), making the best use of each other’s individual strengths.

I want to end with one thought in particular; we can all give our time. At least, a little of it.

I personally know friends who knit caps to give to the homeless. I know others who write letters of encouragment to inmates. I have an elderly friend who is unable to leave her bed due to her severe infirmities. Yet she daily mails a letter to “someone, somewhere”, just to tell people that she loves them. (I bring her postage stamps each month, but she adamantly refuses to let me pay for them. Normally I would not listen to such a demand, but we must all be mindful not to get in the way of allowing people to create their own sense of self-dignity in doing what they can to live a giving life.)