So, there’s a lawyer I follow on Twitter – Greg Doucette down in Durham, NC. Good dude, generous with his legal knowledge, funny, kind, and what we’d call a good egg.
In 2015, he teamed up with a local teacher in Durham, Turquoise Parker, to do a food drive so the kids in her classroom would have food to eat over the holiday break. They got a carful of food for the kids.
2016 – enough to fill his RAV-4.
2017 – enough to feed three classrooms of kids.
2018 – they fed the entire school.
2019 – enough for THREE SCHOOLS – $13K goes a long way at Costco!
2020 – Yesterday was the big day. They were shooting for $14K in donations – with concerns that though his Twitter following is bigger now, folks just don’t necessarily have a ton of cash right now cause of the pandemic.
Well, as of last night at 10:30 EST, before adding in matching amounts that folks put up (22 people did matches!) – they had 487 people donate $22,431.35. In one day.
The fundraiser went on until midnight PST and it seems there were a couple of retweets from big accounts and this morning, he thinks once all the dust has settled – they may hit $40,000.
Despite everything, people are good. They want to help other people, and when given the opportunity, they do. I know I gave a little more this year, figuring I could offset someone else who had to give less, or maybe couldn’t give at all this year – guess I wasn’t the only one. (Next year I think I will sign on to do a match – the number of people that said things along the lines of, “I felt better knowing that even though I could only give $5, it became $30” because of the matching.)
The whole thread of days happy insanity with the backstory and pictures is here.
I know we should live in a country where this isn’t needed. Today, I am choosing to focus on the fact that people really, really stepped up to help. It did my heart quite a lot of good.
Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female. 
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ve had to eat from our regional pantry since late spring — we quickly went from three incomes to .5 of one this year — and I still get overwhelmed and choked up every single time I’m in line. So many people donating to make this happen, and so many people volunteering their time to distribute. It’s a twice-a-week visual reminder for me that people are so good and communities are so strong.
And yes, when I volunteered for many years for the same pantry that’s feeding me, I learned why they advertise with their “$10 becomes $100” messaging. They don’t want folks to donate $10 worth of canned peas — they want them to donate $10 cash so it can become $100 worth of peas through direct bulk buying. People LOVE the idea that they only have to carry the baton for one lap, and the rest of the team can get them to the finish line. Makes small donors feel more optimistic and valuable, which they are. :)
Yep – the Scouts do food drives a couple times a year for our local food bank, and I always grab some things from the market, and then go do a cash donation so they can round out what they have with what they still need. And the matching – it so helps folks feel like a small amount helps. (Any amount helps even without the match, but I know how it can feel like a small amount isn’t “enough”)