City homeless donate $14.64 for quake victims

[babylonsister]

City homeless donate $14.64 for quake victims
Relief workers moved by sacrifice at downtown shelter

By Scott Calvert | [e-mail]

January 30, 2010


Donations for Haiti have poured in to the American Red Cross of Central Maryland from a range of sources. Nothing, though, has stood out like the coins and crumpled dollar bills that spilled from one envelope.

That gift - $14.64 - came from the pockets of homeless people at a downtown Baltimore shelter.

"We were all weepy-eyed," recalled Red Cross volunteer coordinator Bobbie Jones, who was at the front desk when the donation arrived.

Public relations director Linnea Anderson got teary, too. "Just the thought of those people huddled together in a shelter and seeing a need beyond themselves is enough to give anybody chills," she said. "What a remarkable example of the human spirit."

The Red Cross chapter has raised over $400,000 for earthquake-ravaged Haiti, counting pledges, Anderson said. Many donations have been hand-delivered to its Northwest Baltimore office. Jones said one man took the subway from downtown to give a few dollars and said, "I felt like I had to help." Another man, moved by images of suffering Haitian children, handed $20 to Executive Director Frank Miller.

But the modest donation from the homeless shelter made an especially big impression. It was dropped off Jan. 19 by Tim Herty, a lay pastor at Grace Fellowship Church in Timonium. Herty collected the money two days earlier while holding a church service at the city's 350-bed Guilford Avenue shelter.

"Your heart swells," said Linda Boyer, executive director of Jobs, Housing & Recovery Inc., the nonprofit group that runs the shelter for the city. She said there was no way to interview the contributors because no one took down their names.

more...

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-md.homeless30jan30,0,3352899.story

[druidity33]

1. that got me all choked up. K&R. nt.

[MindPilot]

2. Like the homeless guy who who bought my lost puppy a burrito

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4939846&mesg_id=4939846

I got teary-eyed when the President mentioned the 8-year-old who sent his allowance to the White House asking for it to be forwarded to Haiti.

[happy_liberal]

3. K&R

"Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: 44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living."

[Forkboy]

4. ...

:cry:

[w8liftinglady]

5. one of my favorite quotes seems appropriate

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."
Leo Buscaglia

[pipi_k]

6. OK, so all the people who are posting on FB...

about how wrong it is that there are all these telethons and stuff to give money to the people of Haiti when we can't even take care of the poor people in our own country, blah blah blah, they need to see this.

I guess they just don't realize...out of sheer ignorance...that the poorest of the poor in the US are STILL better off in so many ways than those unfortunates in Haiti, even before the earthquake struck.


Thanks for sharing this...it's always good to know that human compassion still exists even when people don't have a lot themselves to give...

[happy_liberal]

7. the poorest of the poor in the US still desperately need our help

Emergency Help Desperately Needed to Heat Homes on the Pine Ridge Reservation
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7611298

[pipi_k]

9. Yes they do....

but what I'm sensing from the people who have posted those copy and paste manifestos, many of them haven't even put their money where their mouths are and helped anyone at all. Not even the poor in this country.

OK...I found one and copied it:

America: a country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed without eating, elderly going without needed meds, and mentally ill without treatment - yet we have a benefit for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations. 99% of people won't have the guts to copy and repost this. I DID..


See what I mean?

People think it's "gutsy" to copy and repost it, but I don't see where any of them are saying, at the end of it all, "I donated to __________ (a shelter/a soup kitchen/a nursing home/etc)".


PS...I just thought of something....

I'm going to post that link on my FB page...the one you shared. Maybe with a subtle message to all the people who thought it was so brave to post that rant but won't actually do anything for people in this country.

[pipi_k]

10. PPS....

I just posted the link to the article on the Daily Kos on my own FB page.

Hopefully it will help.

I'm going to try and send a donation to them. Can't afford the price of a tank of propane, but they did say every little bit helps.

:)

[babylonsister]

11. pipi_k

My r/w brother posted that link; he's no more in favor of helping Americans with health care as he is helping people in Haiti, and claims he's 'very' Christian. I responded to him that I was happy to see him want to have health care for Americans, and that his compassion was overwhelming. He promptly unfriended me.

I think I will also post it on my fb page, not that he'll see it! But I'd like to see reactions, too.

[happy_liberal]

8. kick

:kick:

[JetCityLiberal]

12. k&r

Thanks for this post and article.

Needs to be spread far and wide.

Paul