“What’s in your wallet?” The iconic Capital One slogan brought to us by Jennifer Garner, Samuel Jackson, Taylor Swift, and even John Travolta as Santa Claus, is a phrase that sticks. My not so iconic question is, “What’s in your pockets?”

Before wallets, humankind had pockets, really just a pouch, tied around the waist. German tourists discovered the earliest specimen of a naturally preserved pocket amidst the skeletal remains of a human near the Austrian-Italian border in 1991. A glacier had encased the lower part of the body.

Nicknamed Iceman, he was assumed to be a deceased mountaineer. Archeologists determined Iceman was perfectly preserved in ice for 5,300 years, along with his perfectly preserved pocket.

His pocket held a scraper, drill, flint flake, bone awl and a dried fungus. You can see them at the South Tyrol Museum of Archeology in Bolzano, Italy.

Pockets carry what we care about, cash, change, credit cards, keys and cellphones. Pockets are hiding spots for nervous hands, little boy’s rocks and Littlest Pet Shop pets. I know this because my brother carried rocks in his pockets as a child, and my granddaughter carried Littlest Pet Shop toys.

Today pockets can be deep, shallow, front, back, down the legs, inside and outside. You might have one or two or seven. What’s in your pockets?

Like all the different pockets in your pants, you give in many different ways when you make charitable donations. For example, you might write checks from your checking account, charge a donation to your credit card, give from a donor-advised fund or include an organization in your will. Every pocket represents a different giving style.

You might give from your volunteer pocket or the helping hand pocket.

The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) provides a snapshot of giving from our many pockets, the World Giving Index (WGI). Started in 2009, it is the largest survey of charitable giving worldwide, examining three categories: donating money, volunteering time, and helping strangers.

In fact, of the three different behaviors, more than three billion people helped a stranger in 2020. Plus, more people donated than in the last five years, 31% of all adults.

The June 2021 report looks at what happened during the first year of the pandemic. The top 10 most giving countries were Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Myanmar, Australia, Ghana, New Zealand, Uganda, Kosovo and Thailand.

America ranked 19th in the WGI Gallup survey conducted in 2020 on behalf of the CAF. In 2016 we ranked No. 2 in the WGI.

According to CAF Chief Executive Neil Heslop, “These changes are not a sign that people’s willingness to donate decreased, but that their opportunity to donate diminished, largely as a result of pandemic-related lockdowns. Charity-based retail stores were forced to close, fundraising events were canceled, and many elderly charity volunteers had to shelter themselves instead of volunteering.”

WGI results indicate that generosity is much more than a result of being wealthy. We can all give in some way from one of our pockets. 2021 was a year of getting back on our feet. And now, with 2022 well on its way, we have a chance to again give financially, volunteer, and help strangers.

East Texans are generous. There is no scientific index to prove it, but I am sure East Texas would rank high. Some years ago, the manager of the Petroleum Club, once located atop the Citizens Bank Building in downtown Tyler, told me that in his many years as a private club manager across the south, he had never worked in a community with so many nonprofit special events.

Special events are back and just one of the many ways we support organizations we care about.

It requires many pockets to support many nonprofit organizations. But, unlike the Iceman, most of us do not intend to preserve what’s in our pockets. Instead, we frequently use what’s in them for the good of others. Pockets in East Texas are all shapes and sizes, and so are our gifts.

So, let’s get busy and give well this year. I am confident America will soon be back on top.