Day 15 ❦ Giving feels better than coveting.

Day 15

The Gift: A bag of new items to the Salvation Army, a fifty dollar donation, an apple and banana.

I woke up this morning eagerly anticipating my giving today. I knew exactly what I was going to do and had packaged up the gift already. Never in my life did I anticipate how cool the myriad of other giving opportunities that would reveal themselves today would be. I am so glad that I did not artificially restrict myself to only one giving opportunity per day!

My experience giving to the Salvation Army was so rewarding last time that I decided to give a full bag of brand new things - either unworn, unwrapped, or still with the tags on - brand new. As I was cleaning the closets, I pulled out things that I would never wear and items that fit my brand new criteria and filled a bag. It was so much fun to deliver this bag full of items at the Salvation Army this morning.

Later in the day I got a phone call from a friend asking me to go to a political rally and hear Al Franken speak. I jumped on the opportunity and found myself in the fourth row at the State Theatre for an extremely entertaining evening. Okay so this situation brings up some questions:

• Does this qualify as a giving opportunity and why am I including it?
• Does it count if I get something back in return?

My husband and I believe very strongly in giving on an annual basis and easily donate to charitable organizations and help friends and family when we can. I know that to count that giving in this new exercise just wouldn’t be right - it wouldn’t challenge me to find new opportunities. So that is the operative word, a new donation, something that I would not have given before I started this exercise.

GUIDELINE #4 - Any donation can be counted over and above my regular annual giving.

Now the other question is more tricky because while I would not count the purchase of a ticket to the local symphony or children’s theatre (albeit they are partial donations) why should I count the donation to see Al Franken? The difference is this - I was told when I wrote the check that the Theatre was not charging anything for the performance and that the entire amount of my check was considered a donation. That is my guiding light. Yes, I got some value from the experience, but I can also make the case that I am getting something out of every giving experience. So:

GUIDELINE #5 - The intrinsic personal value of the gift (or donation) does not disqualify the giving opportunity.

If the intrinsic personal value of the giving opportunity disqualified the opportunity - I could not count the next experience. This was one of the more meaningful experiences yet. On our way to the Theatre, we were stuck in traffic in Minneapolis. At one such stop we noticed a woman sitting by the side of the road with a sign saying that she was homeless and hungry and would work for food. I could feel all four of us in the car preparing to steel ourselves to not watch her as we drove by - we certainly had no job to offer her - we all held our breath as we inched closer to her and suddenly I remembered that we had a bowl of fruit in the car, brought along for our long ride to the cities. I shouted “roll down the window - give her the banana” and relief flooded the car as the driver rolled down the window and gave this woman the fruit from our basket. It wasn't a lot - although it was all we had, but it sure felt a lot better than driving by, working hard to ignore her.

❦ Giving feels better than coveting.