Money For The Poor

It's heart warming when you see a young child think of others besides themselves. It's even more heart warming when it's your own child.

DS was given money over the weekend as a late Christmas Present. Actually, my FIL (Father-In-Law) gave my kids the choice to have the money or to go shopping with him. The kids decided to go shopping WITH Grandpa. Which made my FIL's day; it just didn't happen until this weekend, because of weather and illnesses. The weather was good over the weekend and everyone needed for the shopping trip was healthy.

So that was the first thing that made me proud of my kids. They didn't just want the money, they wanted time with their grandfather. Right now they are 6 and 7 but I pray that they will be 10 and 9 or even 16 and 15 and still choose to go shopping with Grandpa instead of just receiving the money.

As I was saying DS received his money over the weekend and did go shopping with his Grandpa. He did buy things for himself, but it's what he did with the left over money that impressed me. Yep that's right DS had left over money he did not spend all of his money at the store.

The first thing he did when he came home was put some of his left over money in the YELLOWSTONE FUND. We have a jar in our living room called the Yellowstone Fund. It's a jar that we are saving money in to hopefully be able to go to Yellowstone in late 2009 or early 2010. So DS donated some of his money for our Yellowstone Fund.

The next thing he did was this morning at church. When we walked into the church he stopped and took out his wallet and shoved some of his money into the money box in the wall. The money box said right on it "Money For The Poor"

This action amazed me because honestly I didn't even know that he knew the box was there. DH and I never put money in it and we have never pointed it out to the kids. So I was shocked that he knew. He then asked why we don't give money to the poor. I told him we do. Then he said well you never put it in the box here.

This gave me a really good window to explain that when our church collects money during the Mass (our church service)4% of all the money collected automatically goes to the local homeless shelter, for the poor, every week. I even then pointed out that amount to him in the bulletin. Every week the bulletin shows how much was collected from the week before and how much was given to the local homeless shelter.

DS thought this was cool and then stated: Well all the money I gave will just go to the poor because I put it in the poor box; I was the first in my family to use the box. (That may be true and to be honest I don't know if anyone uses the poor box any more)

Anyway, it doesn't matter how he gave it's just cool that he thought of giving, all on his own. It's even cooler that he noticed the box on the wall. Kids really do notice the things around them!!!