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Hi! I'm Lindsay Ferrier. You might remember me from a blog called Suburban Turmoil. Well, a lot has changed since I started that blog in 2005. My kids grew up, I got a divorce, and I finally left the suburbs for the heart of Nashville, where I feel like I truly belong. I have no idea what the future will hold and you know what? I'm okay with that. Thrilled, actually. It was time for something totally different.
What You’ve Taught Me About Giving
September 4, 2013
Three years ago, Nashville and the surrounding area experienced what scientists called a 1,000-year flood.
It rained hard and continuously for two straight days. By the end of the first day, I watched in horror along with the rest of the city as this happened on one of our major interstates:
By the end of the second day, this was my community:
Fortunately, my neighborhood was on high ground and we were okay. Thousands of my neighbors, though, had lost everything. In my kids’ elementary school, several teachers lost their homes, as well as children in nearly every classroom. What followed was a tremendous volunteer and fundraising effort on behalf of the entire city (and beyond) to help our friends and neighbors recover. I wrote about what was going on and many of you sent money and gift cards and supplies. Because of your incredible generosity, thousands of dollars in gift cards went straight to people who desperately needed them.
If you were one of the many Suburban Turmoil readers who offered help to Nashville’s flood victims, here’s what you need to know- You didn’t just provide immediate help to people who lost everything. You changed me, too. You were instrumental in teaching me how to help others– You taught me that giving to others, physically or financially, isn’t always easy or convenient or comfortable– and also that when it is done freely and without expectation of reward or return, it is one of the best feelings in the world. Three years later, your donations have not been forgotten, either by me or by the people who received them. Even now, recipients of your gift cards still come up to me and talk about how much those cards meant to them at a time when they felt hopeless and forgotten. They take great pride now in the fact that they have rebuilt and recovered, and some have told me that they have gone on to help others in need because of the unexpected gifts they received from people like you.
You did that.
And yet…
How often have we thought about giving money or time to a cause, only to be stopped by the questions that inevitably pop up in our minds?
“How can we know what she’ll REALLY do with that money?”
“I want to do something, but I just don’t have the time to get involved.”
“Doesn’t he go to a church/synagogue/non-profit center? Why aren’t THEY helping him?”
“I want to help the poor- but some of them just don’t want to change. I only want to help the ones that do.”
“I can only afford to give a few dollars– not enough to help anyone do anything.”
I’m not judging here. I’ve had all of these thoughts at one time or another. All of them. We are taught our entire lives to only invest our time and our hearts into things (and people) that will give us some kind of return. Naturally, we want the same from our charitable investments. We want to see RESULTS, and uncertainty over results tends to stop us in our tracks when it comes to donating time or money to a cause.
But think about the flood for a moment. So many people sent me literally whatever they had to give, whether it was $300 in cash or an envelope full of grocery coupons. One woman sent a box of bathroom supplies- soap, shampoo, deodorant, a few washcloths- that kind of thing. I wondered when I received it what on earth I was going to do with it. The next day, I got an e-mail about a single mom and her two teenagers who had temporarily moved into an empty house in the next neighborhood.
I took them the box.
Several months ago, I ran into that woman again. She proudly reported that she was back on her feet financially, and three years later, she wanted to thank me in particular for that box.
“We called it the Magic Box,” she said. “Any time we needed something, we’d look in the box and find it there. It just made us feel so much better to know that strangers from all over the country cared about what happened to us.”
Do you see what I’m getting at?
I’m assuming the reader who sent that box simply rounded up some items she already had in her closet and mailed them to me. Who would have guessed that something so small could have such a big impact?
It wasn’t the dollar amount of the cards and supplies you donated to flood victims that often reduced them to tears, and made them seek me out years later to ask me to thank you again. It was the knowledge that people who didn’t know them, people who didn’t even live in Nashville, cared about them.
I urge you to not let your skepticism keep you from helping others. You have taught me to trust in giving indiscriminately and extravagantly. If we err in our benevolence (and we almost certainly will from time to time), as George Saunders so eloquently put it, let’s err in the direction of kindness.
To put it more plainly, the next time your heart urges you to give, whether it’s your time or your money, DO IT.
And tell that cynical voice asking those ridiculous questions to shut the hell up.
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It’s amazing how God can take what we may think is the small thing we can offer, and either multiply it beyond our wildest dreams or put it in exactly the right spot, at exactly the same time. No gift, given in love with a genuine intent to bless another, will ever go unnoticed.
So true- In so many instances, the gift cards I received were exactly the ones that were needed, even seemingly random ones. That was really cool!
word.
Magic box – that brought a tear. Thanks for sharing this Lindsay.
I often wonder what the outcome was after I donate a few dollars to a cause. I think that the kind of results that happened with the gift cards probably has also happened in many of the situations I’ve donated money to- Now, even when I don’t know the outcome of giving, I just have to trust that it’s a good one, even in ways I never could have anticipated. 🙂
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing!
Few years back our little city in BC flooded. It was amazing the help our community received from all over the place… My sister lives in Calgary, and this year lots of floods. Many lost homes. But Many I think found something else, “Hope” and a renew sense of humanity.:) Ps I like your blog, will read again!
Such a heartwarming story. I felt so terrible when I saw all of that damage and again when it hit the Jersey shore because I was financially unable to help and besides being too far away I am physically unable to of helped. I look for things/causes that I can help with and the first one was a story that was all over the news at the time Devil On Detroit St in Michigan. What I helped with was putting together and assisting in this huge amazing fund raiser to raise funds for ,a little 7 yr girl who was dying from Huntingtons disease… a couple of years after her mother died from same disease, financial assistance to pay enormous hospital bills etc. It felt amazing to help out and to see that beautiful little girls smile and to see some amount of happiness in her father and step moms eyes. The reason I say the story is called Devil On Detroit St.. if you look it up and read the story you will be devestated that there are humans like that on this planet who could possibly treat a child the way that they had and even AFTER PPOs, police presence etc the people STILL harassed this poor family. So all of us who put together and worked on the fundraisers ALL felt more happiness in helping this family out to let them know that NOT everyone out there were cruel, nasty and mean that they were the minority NOT the Majority. So yes I wish I could do more for others. So I know it from both sides the giving…and the heartbreaking but grateful receiving. So let me tell you this- those of us who receive this help especially when its not expected and just done out of the goodness of someones heart because they know that we need the help financially (and emotionally).My stepson at 19 committed suicide this past June and we are not financially, set we live barely check to check as is so we had no money to go towards funeral or burial at all. Our friends all put on some AMAZING fundraisers! Literally within hours to a day of finding out what happened and not even sure of our need for it we got a call from a friend we became reacquainted with just recently ON FB no less that he had a bar who donated the night free and his band and a few others were going to play, that there was a cover at door and that there would be a live raffle and too many other things to remember right now and 100% of the money raised would be given to us! My SO just started crying and thanking someone on the phone then when he composed himself he told me what happened and I started crying. Then we got a call from a lady who ran the hall that my stepson use to work at as a kid saying the hall was ours for the day for a luncheon at no charge. Which turned out perfectly because we had no idea what we were going to do with all of the people who wanted to gather for remembrances, lunch, etc. So I put it together and SO many people just came out and donated the food and drinks AND the lady that donated the hall donated her time to us as well to help us with the luncheon from start to finish… So just so that you now know where your help goes and how it makes someones life easier… it means the world to us. I know it from both sides now the giving and receiving. I plan on helping with more fundraisers since that is what I can physically do and I will keep paying it forward.So let me thank you from all of us who you have helped one way or another. And just to say something quickly about the box of soaps, etc… a friend of ours that had no way of financially or physically helping us out- just sent us a hand written letter telling us just how sorry she was she couldnt help etc but that her heart was with us and our son would always be in her prayer.. THAT meant the world to my SO so much so that the letter is kept right by his computer in his office…next to his sons picture. THANK YOU TO ALL THAT HELP EVEN IF ITS JUST A KIND WORD… those mean the world to us.