This time of year is intense for Army Of Good deeds, made all the more so by the very beautiful young people and staff at Bishop Maginn High School and the summer needs – light clothes and shoes and socks and pants – of the new residents of the Mansion.

I’ve been working overtime to supply the most urgent needs – the right shoes and socks and sandals and pajamas and shirts (and books) to two groups that are different in many ways, but have two things very much in common: they have absolutely nothing.

Many of you are helping to support the Bishop Maginn High School Wish List, and thanks – we are slowly but surely buying the gift cards and laptops and microscopes the school needs.

These last few weeks, I’ve run into a wall of need,  I think I’m on top of the most pressing issues, but not totally out of the woods. It’s the young and the old.

It’s the personal stuff that has drained my refugee/Mansion fund down to less than $100. The needs of some of the refugee students is  wrenching – this kids need so much more than I can give them, but I can – have – helped to provide some of the things they need so badly.

There is a small wave of new Mansion residents arriving at the beginning of summer. Some have absolutely nothing. I asked Georgeanne yesterday what she needs, and she smiled and shook her head: “I need everything.”

I made five trips to Wal-Mart this week for the Mansion residents – I usually steer clear of Wal-Mart –  and spent several hundred dollars on the refugee children, somewhat adrift in the summer, their families are close to destitute. It was more than I expected, both wrenching and uplifting.

It feels good to do good, but I also have to be thoughtful and careful. We live in a harsh country in many ways.

I know I can’t provide everything, and this is particularly active time, so many requests for help. I weigh them carefully, and make hard choices, but I’d like to see the fund higher than $100. So if you can help, I truly understand, and if you can’t, I also understand.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like large contributions, but I am sincere when I say that the Army Of Good is not a wealthy army, your small contributions make all of the difference, $5 is just as important  as $100 to me. It matters.

Today, I’m heading out to some Thrift Shops to buy some shirts, and to Wal-Mart for some underpants, and to a library store for some large print books. I am a whiz trawling online for bargains. I have a large network of thrift stores helping me.

And of course, the Army Of Good, without which, there is little good to be done.

I don’t have much of my own money to add to the pot at the moment, so help would be welcome. I feel we are doing better work in a more focused and effective way than every before.

If I had a million dollars, I could spend it in a minute and still not fill all the holes in these people’s lives. So I don’t shoot high, I shoot low – the basics of life. Sneakers and clothes for the refugees, summer clothes, shoes and personal wear for the Mansion residents.

If you wish to help,  you can contribute via Paypal, [email protected], or by check or small contributions, Jon Katz, Mansion/Refugee Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. I thank you. So do a lot of other people.

I very much love the idea of working at both ends of the human spectrum, the young and the old.