Saturday is the day we share your stories about giving to others.

Please write in and tell us about what you do. How do you use your particular talents/strengths/skills to help others? When money and time are tight, how can you get creative about giving back?

Today we’re featuring the lovely Emma Bains, who lives on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and works her magic at Tanya Tancredi Salon and Spa in Gulfport, Mississippi.

Emma writes:

As an esthetician, I have the God-given talents to help others look and feel better about their appearance. As an esthetician who has lost two immediate family members to cancer, I want to give to others struggling with their illness and hopefully make them feel a little better in the process. Thus, the reason I volunteer my services to conduct the American Cancer Society’s, Look Good Feel Better classes in my community. My services include teaching patients to apply makeup donated by caring companies that conceals the effects of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. It’s amazing what teaching a woman how to correctly draw an eyebrow, where one once grew, can do for her self-confidence! Also, I teach them about proper skincare during their treatment periods and how to help make it look, and feel, normal.

Being a southern girl, my grandmother and my mother, always taught me to never go out in public without my lipstick!  As unnecessary as I perceived this to be then, I came to understand that the reasoning behind their “nagging” was it would make me feel better, and I would be better motivated to take on my day!  The LGFB program reinforces these same beliefs.  My goal is to be their motivator, and remind them how beautiful they are, even with no hair!

As a Bitch on a Budget, and a single mother, I have tightened my (already tight) financial belt, to the point that my contributions to charities were getting smaller. However, volunteering my time to LGFB fills that void. Teaching LGFB actually gives me a spiritual uplift when I see these beautiful, strong women smiling, laughing and leaving the classes with newfound confidence in their appearance, and attitudes toward fighting their cancer. I leave knowing they are going to beat their cancers too! If anything, I am the one who leaves with a new feeling of self-worth, and to these heroic women, I am thankful.

So, while I was looking to give back to my community during tight times, it is giving back to me too!

Thanks for this empowering message, Emma.

Now, readers, tell us how YOU give back. Click “comments” above. Inspire us!