{"id":3299,"date":"2008-01-12T09:38:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-12T09:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/the-gift-of-giving.html"},"modified":"2008-01-12T09:38:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-12T09:38:00","slug":"the-gift-of-giving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/the-gift-of-giving.html","title":{"rendered":"The gift of giving"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two great stories about the gift of giving caught my eye recently. <\/p>\n

The first<\/a> came last night on the CBS Evening News — a broadcast with which I have some passing familiarity, cough, cough — and was about a bank in North Dakota that gave its employees a thousand dollar bonus for Christmas. But with a catch. They had to give it away.<\/p>\n

“There were three rules. You can’t give it to your family. You can’t give it to a co-worker. And you have to document your good deed. Other than that, the sky’s the limit,” chief operating officer Michael Solberg said.<\/p>\n

The tapes are just now starting to roll in, and they run the gamut: from the woman who paid for an abandoned kitten to get a life-saving surgery to the guy who gave the money to a friend whose car got stolen.<\/p>\n

One worker bought DVDs and DVD players for the local cancer ward while another turned her check over to a young, struggling, brand-new widow.<\/p>\n

And what did the workers get out of it?<\/p>\n

\u201cJust a real good feeling of giving,” one said.<\/p>\n

Another: \u201cYou actually truly see the benefit better by doing it yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

And another: \u201cIt actually gets to the people that we know in the community that need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Employees say this gift of giving is truly the best bonus they’ve ever gotten. And they’re already counting the days ’til next Christmas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a great tale, told as only the inimitable Steve Hartman can tell it. Check the link<\/a> for more, and the accompanying video. <\/p>\n

The second tale comes from the Catholic Universe Bulletin<\/a>, in Cleveland:<\/p>\n

Jack Martanovic, a sophomore at St. Ignatius High School, had no idea the mammoth men\u2019s shelter run by Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries near downtown even existed prior to Gesu Parish\u2019s second annual Service Day on December 1.<\/p>\n

Yet, there he stood on a Saturday afternoon scrubbing a restroom door at 2100 Lakeside, as the shelter has come to be known on the street. A movie or a game of football with friends could have been more appealing, but he, like more than 770 other volunteers, including his father and uncle, chose to give time and energy to others that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get out here, you\u2019re doing good,\u201d Martanovic said. \u201cI would definitely come back in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before returning to the University Heights parish for Mass, the volunteers spread across 48 different sites in Greater Cleveland, including the Cleveland Food Bank, Cleveland Clinic Children\u2019s Hospital and the Jennings Center for Older Adults in Garfield Heights for a day of service. Meg Wilson, Gesu\u2019s outreach coordinator, wasn\u2019t simply searching for a sufficient compliment when she described the churchgoers as active.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of people realize they\u2019re fortunate and they welcome a chance to get out in the community,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cSome people, after they\u2019ve volunteered, have contributed money and time to the same places they went last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesuit Father Lorn Snow, the mastermind behind Service Day, said it was created to promote the Jesuit identity of the church.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Jesuit church should be all about reaching out beyond our church,\u201d Father Snow said. \u201cBeing available is really what it means to be a Jesuit parish.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Jack Martanovic and others tended to the restroom, Bennett Presser, a sophomore at St. Ignatius, and his aunt, Jody Prosser, readied juice cups to accompany the spaghetti lunches about 225 men consumed. Meanwhile, Gary Wright and his son, Evan of University Heights, placed salads on trays to go with the pasta, garlic bread and apple crisp cobbler.<\/p>\n

Gary and Jack\u2019s father, Joe Martanovic, agreed that the seemingly simple act of preparing lunch at a men\u2019s shelter would have an lasting effect on their children\u2019s development as young men.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they can learn to respect others, especially people that are challenged by some things that they most likely will never be challenged with,\u201d Gary Wright said. \u201cEverybody\u2019s story is different \u2026 (volunteering) is one of the best things a young man could do.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read more at the Catholic Universe Bulletin link above. And you can visit the Gesu parish website at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}