How Much?!

By the time 9:00 AM rolled around this morning I had been hit up for $17,500!

Habitat for Humanity (a cause I wholeheartedly support) "asked" for $10,000. I've always admired fundraisers - they have a lot more gall than I do, and well frankly, I've got a lot of gall.

One of the Women's Shelters in town wants to be able to name a bedroom after our church community. How nice. They can furnish the room (and I suppose have the little brass plate engraved with our name) for $5,000.

Then one of the guys from our Men's Ministry asked for "only" $2,500 to start a new ministry to help elderly people clean up their yards and do minor house repair. I'm all in favor of helping elderly people have neat yards, but $2,500? Somehow when he made the appointment on the phone and gave me the quick rundown of the ministry I had envisioned middle-aged guys grabbing rakes and lawnmowers from their garages. I didn't realize that they would need to "buy stuff." Turns out the men decided that it would be good for them to get a small trailer to tow behind a car (guess I'm grateful they didn't want us to buy a vehicle too) along with a lawn mower, blower, edger and various non-power tools and to quote my friend, "there was other stuff, but we're trying to keep the church's buy-in down."

I don't mind Habitat having a professional fundraiser ask for more than they know we'll be able to give - heck, they probably figure that if they ask for $10,000 they may get $1,000, but if they asked for a $1,000 they may only get $100.

I don't mind the Shelter asking - it can't hurt to ask and maybe we can help them with some furniture donations from members of the congregation.

But the men's group asking for money - when they sit in the pews every weekend and know that times are hard and this is not exactly a wealthy community - that just beats all. What can you do?

ACC