Charity begins at home – and it just keeps on giving
November 20, 2005
If it wasn’t apparent to everyone before, it ought to be obvious to everyone now. Private philanthropy in America is a remarkable phenomenon.
It’s always been there, in ways small and large, but one of its characteristics is its quiet, aw-shucks manner that doesn’t call attention to itself.
It was most recently prominent in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when millions of Americans donated a dollar or much more, their homes, their food and clothing and jobs to the homeless evacuees from the Gulf Coast.
But it occurs every day in every town.
You can’t walk into a hospital lobby without seeing a wall of the names of people who made the building and its expensive equipment possible. You can’t visit a museum or a zoo or a library or a recreation center without seeing the recognition given to donors who helped build the galleries, construct the habitats, provide the reading rooms and supply the bats and balls.
When there’s a forest fire or an earthquake or a blizzard, the Salvation Army and American Red Cross and other disaster-assistance agencies respond with anything that’s needed to support the men and women fighting the fires or treating the wounded.
There’s not a poor family in the United States that doesn’t have a helping hand extended from those who have more. There are food banks and clothing drives and campaigns to collect household goods.
Huge corporations and small businesses get into the act too, damn the bottom line, providing money, goods and services in a massive effort to relieve the suffering.
And the churches. God knows – no pun intended – that religious organizations are among the most numerous and most anonymous when it comes to charity. For them, it’s a daily deal, but when Hurricane Katrina hit, it was the so-called faith-based community that organized itself into an effective, powerful, nationwide source of comfort and relief.
What all of this adds up to is a national spirit that, contrary to what its critics at home and enemies abroad say, reflects the most generous and caring nation in history. Never has any nation given so much of its wealth away, to its own citizens and to those outside its borders.
Those greedy, self-centered, materialistic, capitalistic Americans, it turns out, are generous soft touches. They’re suckers for a good cause.
The El Pomar Foundation in Colorado Springs, one of Colorado’s largest philanthropies, last week announced several grants to organizations in southern Colorado, a mostly rural area that is suffering from the economics of urbanization – its jobs, its young workers, its resources being drained away by the big population centers.
El Pomar’s chief executive, Bill Hybl – a dedicated, good-hearted citizen if ever there was one – paid tribute to philanthropy by recognizing “the collective impact that all these organizations have together. … It’s a better community, a better state, a better nation because of the nonprofit community that reaches out to help people.”
If you doubt that, consider this vignette from last week.
At Operation School Bell in Pueblo a volunteer was helping disadvantaged school kids try on new clothing, shop for new backpacks and gather new school supplies.
After the lady had outfitted little Carla with all that she could carry, and more, the child looked up at the woman with deeply appreciative eyes and told her “I love you,” and the two strangers embraced.
That same experience is extended millions of times every year in villages, towns and cities across the country, and in nations around the world, by caring Americans.
And none of them have to do it.
They do it because their hearts move them to, and because it is in their nature. They do it because they are a good and decent people.
The next time you have a cynical moment and think otherwise, turn your thoughts back to reality. Remember that at that very moment charity is at work.
Then go out and help someone. It’s a good remedy for the blues.
