An anonymous donor gave everyone in church $100 —and 100 good deeds were the
result
On the first Sunday of December, the Rev. Ron Foster invited his congregants to
step up to the altar to receive the bread and wine of Communion — and to receive
a $100 bill.
“Listen to where the Holy Spirit’s leading you,” he said to the stunned
congregation as he distributed a stack of money at Severna Park United
Methodist Church, located in a Baltimore suburb. “Listen to the need that’s
around you, that you find in the community. You may be in the right place at the
right time to help somebody, because you have this in your hand.”
One hundred congregants walked out into the Advent season, with the money
burning a hole in their pockets.
One stack of bills totaling $10,000, dropped off at the church by an anonymous
donor, has turned into 100 good deeds in the Severna Park community this
Christmas season.
Ginger ale and soup and warm socks for a cancer patient. Snow pants and gloves
so a child with a brain tumor can play outside. Christmas presents for children
who are homeless, for children whose parents are struggling with drug addiction,
for children whose parents have suffered domestic abuse, for children in the
hospital. Cash for dozens of grateful strangers, from waitresses to bus drivers to
leaf collectors.
One hundred donations goes a long way.
“People have been so thoughtful. The money has just multiplied and blossomed
and gone out,” Foster said. “There’s been so much joy and excitement just
spilling over.”
The anonymous donor has been tickled pink to watch the fruit of her gift.
She doesn’t want her name published. Even her own daughter (who picked up
one of the $100 bills at church and chose to send her donation to children in a
foreign country) doesn’t know that she’s behind the big gift.
“I wanted to make it about the fun,” she said. “We want to make it about the
excitement and the joy of giving, and to give people the experience of giving.”
She came up with the idea this summer, when she was distraught over the death
of Heather Heyer, who was protesting against white supremacists and neo-Nazis
in Charlottesville, Va., who walked the streets with torches chanting, “Jews will
not replace us.”
“I just had that heavy weight on my chest. I just felt bummed out and sad about
our situation, about humanity in general,” she said. She found herself in a
Starbucks, even though her husband makes coffee every day at home. Without
really thinking about it, she bought a gift card, and gave it to the cashier. “I want
you to use this for everybody who comes in after me, until it’s gone. I want you to
treat everybody to a cup of coffee,” she said.
All of a sudden, her depression about Charlottesville lifted. “My mood completely
changed,” she said. “It was that excitement, of being able to share with other
people.”
That’s what she wanted for everyone at Severna Park United Methodist Church,
the church she and her husband started attending when they moved to Severna
Park recently. She had heard about other communities, including her mother’s
church in Texas, where everyone in the congregation was entrusted with money
to distribute. She went to Foster and asked if she and her husband could give
$10,000 to make it happen here.
Foster was enthusiastic. The logistics were a bit more difficult than the donor
expected: It took three banks to actually gather 100 bills to give out. (“The first
one said, ‘All we have is 33.’ Don’t you?! It’s a bank! I had that vision of Richie
Rich in the back with stacks,” she joked.) On the first Sunday of Advent, the bills
were waiting. Everyone who wanted one at the church’s three services, which
collectively host about 550 people each Sunday, was able to take one.
Then the giving spree began.
One congregant took a needy fourth-grader on a shopping trip, where he picked
out socks and underwear and shoes, plus a gift he could give each of his parents.
The boy said it was the best day of his life.
Many congregants decided to add more money of their own — like the one
who filled a cart to overflowing with $275 worth of pet food for the SPCA in
Annapolis, and the couple who chipped in another $100 and paid off items on
layaway at Kmart so strangers can take home their Christmas wishes.
One couple helped their 7-year-old daughter create bags of socks, hand warmers
and McDonald’s gift cards. When a man approached their car to ask for change,
the little girl opened the window and handed out the first of the gift bags, thrilled.
Another congregant heard about a program that gives purses to homeless
women, and decided to buy 100 items to put inside the purses — soap, shampoo,
maxipads and more.
Many had co-workers they knew needed some financial help. Others waited for a
stranger, searching for a serendipitous moment to pass on the $100 bill.
“What was the coolest to me was how I was on ‘high alert’ all week, looking for
people or opportunities to help. That was a great lesson, I think we should always
be in that mode, always on the lookout for who God may place in our path, and
for things He calls us to do. I am going to strive to be in that spirit more and
more, to have eyes to see people’s needs more routinely, and to help in any way I
can,” one congregant wrote on the church’s blog. That member ended up giving
the $100 bill to a waitress, as did another congregant on another day. “I just
trusted that God would put us at the right table, the one with the person He
wanted me to give my envelope to,” the congregant wrote.
The donor behind it all said one of her favorite ideas was Dave Doss’s. He and a
friend ordered 10 pizzas and a case of Orange Crush to be delivered to the steps
of a Baltimore church where they knew homeless men and women hang out.
Then they spent the afternoon having a pizza party with them.
“When you have that $100 burning a hole in your pocket, you’re looking around.
Should I fill that person’s gas tank? Should I buy that person’s groceries? What
can I do? It’s exciting, to have that ability to do that,” the donor said. She said
that she and her husband have had good fortune — they own a business — and
she feels lucky to be able to give, and to enable others to practice giving.
Foster said congregants confided in him that they thought long and hard about
how to use their $100, perhaps even more than they would have had they been
handing out their own funds.
“That to me is good theology anyway,” Foster said. “It’s a good way to think about
your life, that you’ve been entrusted with great gifts. And how do you turn around
and use them?”
It’s an eternal question. This Christmas, his church has 100 answers.
Julie Zauzmer is a religion reporter.
The Washington Post
Acts of Faith
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...deeds-were-the-result/?utm_term=.dca9fcac7ef9
result
On the first Sunday of December, the Rev. Ron Foster invited his congregants to
step up to the altar to receive the bread and wine of Communion — and to receive
a $100 bill.
“Listen to where the Holy Spirit’s leading you,” he said to the stunned
congregation as he distributed a stack of money at Severna Park United
Methodist Church, located in a Baltimore suburb. “Listen to the need that’s
around you, that you find in the community. You may be in the right place at the
right time to help somebody, because you have this in your hand.”
One hundred congregants walked out into the Advent season, with the money
burning a hole in their pockets.
One stack of bills totaling $10,000, dropped off at the church by an anonymous
donor, has turned into 100 good deeds in the Severna Park community this
Christmas season.
Ginger ale and soup and warm socks for a cancer patient. Snow pants and gloves
so a child with a brain tumor can play outside. Christmas presents for children
who are homeless, for children whose parents are struggling with drug addiction,
for children whose parents have suffered domestic abuse, for children in the
hospital. Cash for dozens of grateful strangers, from waitresses to bus drivers to
leaf collectors.
One hundred donations goes a long way.
“People have been so thoughtful. The money has just multiplied and blossomed
and gone out,” Foster said. “There’s been so much joy and excitement just
spilling over.”
The anonymous donor has been tickled pink to watch the fruit of her gift.
She doesn’t want her name published. Even her own daughter (who picked up
one of the $100 bills at church and chose to send her donation to children in a
foreign country) doesn’t know that she’s behind the big gift.
“I wanted to make it about the fun,” she said. “We want to make it about the
excitement and the joy of giving, and to give people the experience of giving.”
She came up with the idea this summer, when she was distraught over the death
of Heather Heyer, who was protesting against white supremacists and neo-Nazis
in Charlottesville, Va., who walked the streets with torches chanting, “Jews will
not replace us.”
“I just had that heavy weight on my chest. I just felt bummed out and sad about
our situation, about humanity in general,” she said. She found herself in a
Starbucks, even though her husband makes coffee every day at home. Without
really thinking about it, she bought a gift card, and gave it to the cashier. “I want
you to use this for everybody who comes in after me, until it’s gone. I want you to
treat everybody to a cup of coffee,” she said.
All of a sudden, her depression about Charlottesville lifted. “My mood completely
changed,” she said. “It was that excitement, of being able to share with other
people.”
That’s what she wanted for everyone at Severna Park United Methodist Church,
the church she and her husband started attending when they moved to Severna
Park recently. She had heard about other communities, including her mother’s
church in Texas, where everyone in the congregation was entrusted with money
to distribute. She went to Foster and asked if she and her husband could give
$10,000 to make it happen here.
Foster was enthusiastic. The logistics were a bit more difficult than the donor
expected: It took three banks to actually gather 100 bills to give out. (“The first
one said, ‘All we have is 33.’ Don’t you?! It’s a bank! I had that vision of Richie
Rich in the back with stacks,” she joked.) On the first Sunday of Advent, the bills
were waiting. Everyone who wanted one at the church’s three services, which
collectively host about 550 people each Sunday, was able to take one.
Then the giving spree began.
One congregant took a needy fourth-grader on a shopping trip, where he picked
out socks and underwear and shoes, plus a gift he could give each of his parents.
The boy said it was the best day of his life.
Many congregants decided to add more money of their own — like the one
who filled a cart to overflowing with $275 worth of pet food for the SPCA in
Annapolis, and the couple who chipped in another $100 and paid off items on
layaway at Kmart so strangers can take home their Christmas wishes.
One couple helped their 7-year-old daughter create bags of socks, hand warmers
and McDonald’s gift cards. When a man approached their car to ask for change,
the little girl opened the window and handed out the first of the gift bags, thrilled.
Another congregant heard about a program that gives purses to homeless
women, and decided to buy 100 items to put inside the purses — soap, shampoo,
maxipads and more.
Many had co-workers they knew needed some financial help. Others waited for a
stranger, searching for a serendipitous moment to pass on the $100 bill.
“What was the coolest to me was how I was on ‘high alert’ all week, looking for
people or opportunities to help. That was a great lesson, I think we should always
be in that mode, always on the lookout for who God may place in our path, and
for things He calls us to do. I am going to strive to be in that spirit more and
more, to have eyes to see people’s needs more routinely, and to help in any way I
can,” one congregant wrote on the church’s blog. That member ended up giving
the $100 bill to a waitress, as did another congregant on another day. “I just
trusted that God would put us at the right table, the one with the person He
wanted me to give my envelope to,” the congregant wrote.
The donor behind it all said one of her favorite ideas was Dave Doss’s. He and a
friend ordered 10 pizzas and a case of Orange Crush to be delivered to the steps
of a Baltimore church where they knew homeless men and women hang out.
Then they spent the afternoon having a pizza party with them.
“When you have that $100 burning a hole in your pocket, you’re looking around.
Should I fill that person’s gas tank? Should I buy that person’s groceries? What
can I do? It’s exciting, to have that ability to do that,” the donor said. She said
that she and her husband have had good fortune — they own a business — and
she feels lucky to be able to give, and to enable others to practice giving.
Foster said congregants confided in him that they thought long and hard about
how to use their $100, perhaps even more than they would have had they been
handing out their own funds.
“That to me is good theology anyway,” Foster said. “It’s a good way to think about
your life, that you’ve been entrusted with great gifts. And how do you turn around
and use them?”
It’s an eternal question. This Christmas, his church has 100 answers.
Julie Zauzmer is a religion reporter.
The Washington Post
Acts of Faith
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...deeds-were-the-result/?utm_term=.dca9fcac7ef9
