Blog post by Maria D., a Kindness Investor from Washington, DC.
Give a warm welcome to Jay. He’s a 22-year old born and raised in the District who currently works at Washington Sports Club. Jay considers himself to be currently underemployed, like so many of us, and has aspirations of being a mechanic. “I’m going to go into the Coast Guard. They gave me an offer to be a mechanic, which will put me on my way to pursuing my longtime dream of having my own mechanic business.”
Jay has been the first person I met so far who knew about the Year of Giving and Reed. “Hey, wasn’t that guy in the newspaper, I think Street Sense? His story was really inspiring.”
How so, I asked. “Well here was this guy who had a great job, then lost it, and was unemployed but handing out money to people. I especially remember the story on the tall, black homeless guy with long white dreads and a staff. Yeah, that story was really inspirational to me.”
And what will Jay be doing with the $10? “You know, Metro’s getting pretty expensive, so that’s where it’s going to go.” But Jay was also concerned with how I’d be able to give him the money. I’m budgeting for it, by giving up lunches out this week. “Well now I feel bad, are you sure?” Ha, YES! Somebody take the money, please!! But a sweet sentiment, nonetheless.
A few things I took away from this encounter are 1) It’s amazing how much money I waste all the time that I could be saving for a rainy day, giving to others, etc. and being underemployed helps put things in perspective; 2) It’s exciting to meet people like Jay who have aspirations and are finding the path and taking the steps to lead them to their goals; 3) Reed is kind of a big deal… Looking forward to tomorrow!
Year of Giving 
I think if you didn’t tell people you are giving up lunches in order to give them $10, you’d have a lot more success in getting them to keep the money. I have really admired Reed and I love this project, and this is the first time I’ve been concerned. I think you need to assess the things you say to people you are giving money to. If you just explain the project rather than talking about yourself and how hard up YOU are, it will be more about giving, and less about you. NO wonder people are giving the money back to you! HOw can they take it in good conscience if you are telling them you are giving up lunches in order to give them money! Honestly. Either do the project with all your heart, or don’t do it. People who are truly giving from the heart don’t make the people receiving the gift feel bad about taking it.
Hi Shirley,
Thanks for your comments, but actually the talk of ME came at the end. It always does. Because they ask about me and I urge them to get involved. I just tell them I’m underemployed. People are just a lot more giving, prideful, or reluctant or whatever the story may be than I was expecting.
Trust me, I’m doing this with the best intentions and I’m trying to be as persuasive as possible.
(Clarification: meaning I don’t just bring myself up voluntarily but people are intrigued as to why the heck I’m giving away money if I am having money trouble myself, sorry didn’t mean to make it seem like I talk about myself a lot, oh man…anyway so I explain the project more and ask them to check it out online)
I have to disagree a wee little bit with Shirley on one point – I don’t think the last two people who gave back the money because of your supposed “sacrifice” – they did it out of the goodness of who they are.
They asked a question and you answered it. And really no one needs lunch at 10 bucks a day. So I don’t think you were making anyone feel bad.
I am glad that you realized how much money you waste by eating out. I know not everyone is of the mind set to make their own lunch everyday but the savings are enormous.
I could make you a healthy lunch everyday for 5 days [the work/school week] for 10 – 15 dollars [depending on what you eat] because I do it every week for my family. And it would include a main, a fruit, veggies/something crispy, dessert and a drink. You just have to know how to do it and it isn’t that hard.
I wish Jay good things in all his endeavors – he is sure to go far!
And I mean no offense but if you had told me that is what you gave up to budget for this – I would’ve laughed and kept the money for our week of lunches. 🙂
I certainly don’t want to get into a dispute about the project, which I love, and I’m sure Maria D has the best intentions. I’ve been following this project for a long time and know that most people don’t have a problem getting recipients to keep the money. I think, from what Reed used to say in his blogs, that he talked about the project rather than himself and his own problems, and he asked the recipients about themselves, so that the focus of the project was not on the giver, but was on the project and the recipient. If Maria is having problems getting the money to “stick” to the hand of the recipient, then maybe it would help if she just talked to Reed about it and found out how he handled this situation so that when it comes up she knows what to do. Bringing the money home again, after all, isn’t the goal of the project, and I’m sure not what Maria wants to happen. There are many ways to tell the truth without making someone feel bad about accepting money from you. For example, you could say, this is money I’ve set aside in my budget for this purpose, so no need to worry! That is the truth. You set it aside for giving rather than for buying lunches. If you say you are giving up lunches, that has a whole other context and will make nice people feel bad. If you offered me money and told me that you had to give up lunches this week to do it, I’d have to be quitge desperate to take the money from you. If you said you had set aside in your budget for this purpose, I would be thankful for the gift and not feel that you were very generous to set aside money just to give to people! I think it is proper to comment on how someone is giving the money if they aren’t actually giving it because of what seems to be a communication problem and you believe you can help them by getting them to think about how they approach recipients to see if there is another way to make it work better.
Sorry – error in the comment I just made.. DIDN’T mean to say: I would be thankful for the gift and not feel that you were very generous Meant to say: I would be thankful for the gift and feel that you were a very generous person.
Shirley did you even notice Jay was in the story?
I don’t see a problem with what Maria said here. She said that she was “giving up lunches out”…it’s not like she is going hungry or anything. Lunch in DC is easily $8 at a basic sandwich shop.
Now it would be pretty hard to accept the ten dollars from someone if they said that they were not eating at all.
I faced this kind of issue a lot. “How can you give me money when you don’t have a job?” I often would share that I believe a lot of us at least in the US can all live on less; forgoing coffees, eating out, or even larger things like vacation. I had a vacation planned last year, but after I lost my job I decided not to take it. Well, I was actually on an extended vacation right! What I meant is I decided not to take the trip that I was planning.
It’s exactly this element that makes being a Kindness Investor so unique. The fact that you are giving something that really does mean something to you. The recipient values it as well because they know that you have placed a higher value on doing something for them than on doing something for yourself.
Lunches out are often expensive and unhealthy. You may be improving you health by doing this!