Giving Tuesday

Between the emails, facebook posts, challenges, newspaper articles, etc. it has been hard to miss that today is 

GIVING TUESDAY!!!

I sound like a Scrooge. 

I'm not a Scrooge. 

I am overwhelmed. There are so many many very good places who need donations, and at the beginning, I was inspired. I was even excited. But then, like when I go to the mall, the number of choices shut me down. Churches, colleges, relief organizations, publications, local homeless shelters, efforts to fight racism, efforts to fight poverty, to make the world safer for children... 

I feel bad. I did not give to anyone monetarily today. Is it OK to say that?

That doesn't mean I won't yet give to someone. I will. I may have missed the "double your gift by giving on facebook" opportunity, offered by the Gates Foundation. I was feeling pretty bad about that. I could have doubled my gift with Bill's money, for heaven's sake. And then I got a bit jaded and wondered what kind of info facebook was collecting from all those donors who gave using facebook. 

Maybe I am a Scrooge.

At any rate, I will be giving, but on a day when I can think clearly about it. 

Today, some friends organized their own giving Tuesday, and I was able to attend for a while. 

Mennonite Central Committee does a lot of work in offering material aid to refugees. Right now there is a huge need for comforters. Many people who sew have already pieced together comforter tops, but they need to be finished by adding filling and a backing and being knotted to hold all the layers together. Tonight a group at church tied four of those comforters.

Someone else will finish the edges, and then they will be sent to someone who needs them.

fitting the filling on the backing

laying the pieced top on the filling

getting it centered and pinned in place

I don't know who donated the fabric, or pieced the tops. I don't know who will finish the edges, or who donated the funds for packing and shipping. I know one tiny part. Four comforters got put together and tied this evening.

Maybe that visual understanding that it takes many of us, that my donation is important only as a part of a much bigger whole, maybe that eased the paralysis of knowing about too many overwhelming needs. 

I WILL give. 

It's ok that it wasn't today.