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| A recent conversation at the Broadway Subway with MCC's Jim Wiegner, Bruce Campbell-Janza and Luke Schrock-Hurst. |
SOS was about having a table set up at the Relief Sale for the sole purpose of accepting cash, check and credit card donations. It was not intended to reduce people's auction, food and other purchases, but to offer an additional way to generate funds for much needed refugee aid, especially since the majority of the total number of attendees each year do not to take part in the auction.
The group invited me to write up some reflections on this first time effort, so here are some thoughts:
1. It takes a whole village to implement even a simple idea like this one. No one person could have done this.
2. The Relief Sale Board deserves appreciation for their willingness to support something they were most willing to give a try. "If this could raise $10,000", one member said, "I would be surprised, but very happy."
3. Some local folks are extraordinarily generous. Of the over $35,000 raised at the SOS table this year, $5000 came from one couple alone. There was also a $2500 donation, and five persons contributed $1000 each. Another individual contributed $750, and astounding 18 people wrote checks of $500 each. Some of the rest of the donations were in the hundreds of dollars each, along with lots of smaller gifts.
4. Sadly, many others were obviously far less generous. Even $35,000 equals only the cost of about 3 1/2 glazed donuts for each of the 10,000 or so attendees at the sale.
5. It's difficult to say how much impact, if any, numerous blog posts and articles, Facebook postings and radio spots, church bulletin inserts and church announcements--or something like the refugee tent set up to show the size of a shelter a family might have to live in for decades--really had on the outcome. Maybe compassion for the destitute can't be effectively advertised or "sold" to people already numbed by all of the suffering in the world.
6. Many people did affirm the SOS effort and said they hoped this would become a regular part of future relief sales.
7. Finally, we still haven't been told exactly how much was raised by this effort. At least of this date we still don't have official numbers, either for the relief sale as a whole or for this small part of it.
But maybe numbers don't really matter. Just so at least a few people in desperate straits around the world are offered some help and hope.
For more links on this effort:
http://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2017/07/raising-million-unamazing-miracle-of.html
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