This year Giving Tuesday is on December 2nd. It is always held on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving with 2025 being its 10th year. The website Giving Tuesday states, “The idea behind Giving Tuesday was to set aside a single day to counter consumerism by giving back.” The day has grown to a global event even with Thanksgiving being uniquely American.

So, what does it mean to give back. Bret Bicox, President & CEO, Door County Community Foundation states, “The 5 T’s of charitable giving are: time, treasure, talent, ties and testimony. You give time when you share your energy and physical presence as you volunteer for an organization. Giving your treasure refers to the monetary and financial contributions you make. A gift of your talent is when you lend your uncommon skills to a charity, such as sharing your investment acumen, financial expertise, legal counsel or other specialized knowledge. You are giving your ties whenever you connect an organization to potential donors in your personal network of friends and colleagues. Giving your testimony refers to the advocacy work you do on behalf of a charity, as in sharing stories of its impact and effectiveness with others in the community.”

As we head into the busy holiday season, Giving Tuesday is a reminder to think of others and how we can make a difference. Asha Curran, CEO of Giving Tuesday says about the day, “When millions unite with a shared purpose, we don’t just give what we can—we create real, tangible change. Each donation, each act of generosity, is a building block for community solutions that actually make a difference.”

Many of us use Trinity Street in Newton as a cut thru to get to Water Street / Rt. 206 and the big box stores, me included. In fact, a few years back before I started working at Family Promise of Sussex County, I thought I was coasting down Trinity getting ready to turn into Stuart / Diller when I was clocked and then pulled over by Newton PD for speeding. I explained to the officer that I’ve never received a ticket (true statement) and to this day I still have that distinction.

But back to the tiny house…have you ever noticed it? It’s set back from Trinity Street all by itself. It’s a Victorian style home that looks like an oversized doll house. While I could not find any definitive facts about this tiny house, one story is that a father built the home as a doll house for his daughter. It has also been stated that there was a full size Victorian home on the property where now you see garages.

It is quite interesting to note that our tiny house of Newton happens to be on Trinity Street. In doing research for this blog, I learned that Philadelphia in the late 1600’s decided to build what was known as trinity houses. From an article posted on Real Estate and Home as a response to a rapid rise in development and a need for affordable housing, the locals, “moved into houses built in alleys between the main streets. The small house lots dictated a style of house that could fit on them. Enter the trinity. The trinity gets its name from its form — a three-story house containing three rooms, stacked one atop the other.”

Maybe we can learn from what some of our original settlers did. Find creative and cost effective solutions to the affordable housing crisis. With this new information when I’m driving through Trinity Street (obeying the speed limit of course) I will look at our tiny house in a whole new way.

While the peak of loneliness in The United States occurred during the pandemic, there is still a significant portion of the population experiencing it. The numbers, while fallen post- pandemic, are still higher than pre-pandemic statistics. So much so that in 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness a national epidemic and in an October 2024 Gallup poll 52 million U.S. adults experience daily loneliness! Younger adults aged 18-34 seem to have a higher incidence of this feeling of isolation, being disconnected from friends, family and even the world.

So how can we deal with this emotion when it arises? Here are some tips:

· Do activities that you enjoy, invite someone to participate with you

· Join a group or club

· Take care of yourself, practice self-care

· It’s OK choosing to be alone, be comfortable with it

· Try not to compare yourself to others, take a break from social media

Remember that we are all part of this social experiment called life and be grateful and kind to one another.

Did you know there is a website solely for sharing what I call fun facts called Did You Knows! They list 980 of them. Here’s just a sample:

Did you know – 11% of people are left handed

Did you know – August has the highest percentage of births – I believe I covered this in a previous blog.

Did you know – unless food is mixed with saliva you can’t taste it – how did they determine that?

Did you know – the average person falls asleep in 7 minutes – wonder how many of us wake up at 3:00 am?

Did you know – a bear has 42 teeth

Did you know – an ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain

Did you know – lemons contain more sugar than strawberries

Did you know – 8% of people have an extra rib

Did you know – 85% of plant life is found in the ocean

Did you know – rabbits like licorice

Did you know – the Hawaiian alphabet has 13 letters

Did you know – birds need gravity to swallow – I’m guessing we as humans don’t?!

Did you know – the most commonly used letter in the alphabet is E – wordle anyone?

Did you know – the 3 most common languages in the world are Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and English Have a need to read the rest of the list…check out their site here https://www.did-you-knows.com/

Share your fun facts, did you knows in the comments section below. I would love to hear them and who knows, I may write a blog about it one day!