Well, this is a first: Holly and I have been asked to be god-parents of Heather and Michael's child. Wow. That's big.
For those of you not tracking with this, Heather and Michael were a young homeless couple who were kind of camping out on the beach in front of our place. Our neighbor, Martin, offered them to come into his studio apartment and stay while they looked for jobs and such. A couple weeks later, she turns out to be pregnant.
That was about 8-9 months ago. Michael recently got put back in jail because he broke his parole. Martin has allowed Heather to stay living with him until she has the baby. She might also spend some time with her mom.
Anyway, being that no one other than Martin was really looking after her or them, we tried to rally a little support to get stuff for the baby and for her. We were overwhelmed by the kindness of people who were complete strangers to Heather.
I think close to $600 or $700 was raised in the period of a week which was turned into a stroller, crib bed, clothes, bottles, blankets, passifiers, and all other sorts of stuff that I know nothing about. Wow. What generosity.
It looks like Heather and Michael are wanting to get married once he is out of jail. It will be cool to journey with them through this. And tonight, Heather asked Holly to be godmother and me to be godfather. Wow. Wow. Wow.
1 comment:
This is indeed how charity is supposed to work... by the willing surrender of time, service, and money on behalf of a motivated individual or group of individuals. This is a far more effective and cost efficient means of welfare than government intervention. Furthermore, the sort of accountability Heather and Michael have to the generous individuals who assisted them is far more powerful then what they would feel toward a government salaried social worker.
I have long believed that one has to abandon all reason to conclude that government activity in welfare is an effective way to fight the “war on poverty.” It hasn’t worked, it isn’t working, and it won’t work. And for people who say they’re so concerned with helping the poor they take surprisingly little interest in challenging the woefully ineffective status quo. Disguised as “concerns about the 1st Amendment” (which liberals don’t seem to understand either), the left pretty much unanimous rejected Bush’s proposal for Faith Based Initiatives. So instead of reform, the left simply calls for higher taxes, more foreign aid, and further support for the corrupt and morally bankrupt UN. This has been their solution to most every problem for the last two decades.
But it certainly sounds good doesn’t it? Bill Clinton sounded very generous when he said he was making so much money he doesn’t need the Bush tax cut. Excellent Bill, then donate that money to a private charity of your choosing. I guarantee it will be more effectively used. And frankly, this illustrates why I think liberals are the way they are. They feel guilty for being selfish, and they assume that everyone is a selfish as they are. They, therefore, conclude that people won’t help the poor unless they are forced by a repressive tax code and an IRS police force. The 2004 Generosity Index illustrates this point quite nicely. My red state ranks #3… where does your blue state rank? Hint, you have to go pretty far down the list until you find a blue state…
And one more note… I assert that the Bush administration and its drive for democracy is quite possibly the best mechanism to fight global poverty and that those nations who reform (by force like Afghanistan and Iraq or by choice like perhaps Lebanon) are likely to see growing economies once stabilization can be achieved. And the foreign aid that continues to go there is also less likely to end up in the hands of the corrupt dictators the left seems to rally around these days. But I'll leave that discussion for another day.
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