We decided to auction off a few items through the Collective Soul fan club on Facebook, and the fans were very generous. We helped raise $224.00 from the auction items, which we earmarked $164 for local food banks/Salvation Army, and gave us enough for two Kiva loans to our Kiva team.
We grabbed $84 worth of food bank tickets when we traveled down to Vancouver last weekend… thats 40 tickets. We had great fun counting them out and ripping them off the cardboard holder… We gave the cashier the tickets and asked if she had to scan them in one at a time – nope… the manager came and did an override and just scanned one.. and so the first half of the donation money was sent off!
We went to the bank in the mall yesterday in our own home town (which is about 1/10 the size of Vancouver) and withdrew $80 worth of 5 dollar bills from the teller, then split it into two batches… and went into the main part of the mall with the first lot of $40 dollars in hand. We found a man about 65 who was standing at the Salvation Army ‘kettle’ ringing the bell and donated to Salvation Army
We went outside the mall, and over to the supermarket and liquor store area, and found a second bell ringer for the Salvation Army – this lady was also around 60-ish and unlike the man in the mall, she was outside in the weather with globes, scarf and hat hoping for people to donate as they went into the liquor store. We told her what we were up to – a joint effort from you all (as we had told the other two people too of course) and gave her the bills for her kettle … the lady was so overjoyed to have a donation of this size she was quite literally in tears… which made me think that she herself has seen hardship and perhaps has had help from the Salvation Army too? It was so incredible to see the look on her face.
Thanks to all of you – we did real lasting good this Christmas!
