Three year old Sarah opened a birthday card from Grandma. Dollars! She was excited to find two five dollar bills. Ten bucks is a lot of money for this little girl. I told her she can spend the money on anything she wants. I offered five ideas:
1. Buy a toy.
2. Buy a pretty dress.
3. Buy some food.
4. Go to a restaurant. [Her excitement grew with each new suggestion.]
5. Help the people who were hurt in the storm.

No contest.

Sarah immediately wanted to give the money to people who were “hurt in the storm” so that they could “build a brick house and get something to drink.” I suggested that she could give some of the money and keep some for herself. She quickly rejected that idea. She wanted to give it all away.

What Sarah really wanted to do was put her dollars in the big Red Cross bottle at the ball park. Of course they aren’t there anymore, but she was still very excited to put her donation in the Compassion Alliance bottle at The Lazy Susan.

Sarah is still worried. She wonders what the people will “scrubble their hair with?” She thinks we should go buy them some shampoo. I’m sure she’d love to fill a disaster bucket.

Today at the grocery store, Sarah wanted to give another dollar. They have Red Cross coupons at the check out. You just pull off the amount you want to donate and have the checker ring it up. Sarah got terribly upset when the checker took her dollar. Heartbroken, she cried, “I wanted to give that money to the people. {Sob} The people hurt in the storm!” It took a long time to convince her that she had.