Change Someone Else Needs

We had some time after dinner today, so I got the idea of rolling the change in our overflowing change urn. By the way, if you use Coinstar at the grocery store I will only charge you 5% to roll your change instead of the 7% they charge.

At any rate, as we did this we naturally discussed what we would do with the money. Normally we do something like go out to dinner with it. Surprisingly, it occurred to me that we should give an animal to someone through World Vision, Heifer International, or Samaritan's Purse. Having read this blog a few weeks ago probably helped.

We ended up with a little over $74 in change. For $75 we could give a goat to someone. We asked Lily to look in her "give" envelope to see what she had (she breaks her small allowance into give, save, and spend buckets). She had $1, which is just what we needed. At first she was hesitant to give the money because she wanted to give it at church. She decided it was a good idea when I put it to her in terms of milk. I said, "You know how in the morning we open up the refrigerator and get you a glass of milk?" She did. I then explained, "Well, this goat will make it so that someone who doesn't have milk can have some." That made things connect for her.

At one point in our discussion she said that she thought we were going to buy a llama for us to keep. We got a good chuckle out of that. We had to explain that we don't have anywhere we could put a llama. She then thought we could go to the hardware store and get some wood. Her plan was for me to build a pen for our new llama. She's very creative.

Incidentally, $35/month will feed, clothe, shelter, and educate an orphan in Uganda through World Vision. The $75 we scraped together from our loose change jar was enough to provide fresh dairy to a family. Check out the gift catalog with World Vision and see if there is a way that you might be able to help. In case you're wondering what happens to donations to this organization you can read reports on it here and here.

I apologize if this post makes it seem like we are tooting our horns. I just thought it was newsworthy and I like to get the word out about real ways we can more or less directly help those who were not fortunate enough to be born in one of the richest nations in the world. My rule of thumb for wealth is that if you do not drink the same water you pee in then you are pretty rich by the world's standards.

Yes we can!