It is no secret that religion does some things better than the secularist movement in Canada, especially things that appeal to families and people in need. Religions have youth groups, social services, family nights, an incredibly tight social network and do service projects like crazy.

In Vancouver a group of Christians are doing their 2nd Annual “Help-Portrait“:

Help-Portrait is a movement of photographers who are using their time, equipment and expertise to give back to those who are less fortunate this holiday season. The goal is simple; find someone in need, take their portrait, print their portrait and deliver them. Started by photographer Jeremy Cowart, this movement has spread around the world; reaching 58 countries at over 600 locations with more than 7000 photographers involved.

Something that seems so small, and that most of us might not even do, can mean a lot to a person or family. Atheist and secular groups in Canada should start to do more projects like this. They don’t cost anymore money than a regular event that gets put on (and could even cost less, depending how it was put on), would attract Christmas-time-donors and contributes to the humanizing of Atheism.

This group has been able to partner with big-name organizations such as Epson and Canon. It would be interesting to see if these big-name organizations would be so quick to partner with an atheist group.

One that I always participate in is the Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child where you get a shoe box, fill it with presents (pencils, socks, toys etc) and send it to a child who wouldn’t have gotten anything for Christmas. It can costs so little to do and again…will mean so much. It would be great if CFI or one of the other big-name atheist groups would decide to do something like this for this Christmas (or …since Christmas is technically Christian… just do something like this at anytime).