Giving Cards: The update.

Back in early June, Nate St. Pierre of Giving Cards gave me a wonderful opportunity to pass along to readers: The chance to “think ‘big’ with ‘small’.”

Specifically, the chance to take a $20 prepaid Visa card and use it to make a big difference in someone’s day. (Or maybe a whole bunch of someones. More on that below.)

Five readers were chosen to receive these cards. The only request from Giving Cards is that they not simply hand over the card. Instead, recipients are asked to think about how to deliver the biggest impact with such a relatively small amount of funding. What I love about this is that it sets recipients loose to dream.

It also lets them provide a little love for local causes. After all, nationally known organizations are always going to get donations. They’ve got the funds for outreach and marketing. But small causes that make a difference locally need help, too.

All the winners had great results. If I had to pick a favorite, it would (narrowly) be the cake kits. A reader named Wendy planned to buy $20 worth of cake mix and icing, then package them with disposable cake pans and birthday candles that she already had on hand. They’d be delivered to a local food bank.

“That will allow people who use the food pantry to make cakes for special occasions. Often these are too costly to purchase, or the ingredients aren’t available at food banks,” she said in a comment on the original post.

Can confirm, having been broke, and having used a food bank. While a cake for someone’s birthday (or graduation, anniversary, confirmation, etc.) isn’t necessary as such, it sure makes being broke a little easier to bear. My guess is that Wendy’s cake kits brightened some people’s days considerably.

Even though she did Giving Cards wrong. But in a great way. 

She messed up by forgetting to take the prepaid Visa with her to the store, so she paid for the kits from her own pocket. But she didn’t repay herself by using the card. “I decided to include it in one of the (kits).”

My guess is that serendipitous scrip made a huge difference in the recipient’s life. For example, imagine not having quite enough money for new shoes for a fast-growing tween. Or not having any money at all, and needing a few gallons of gas to get to work until payday.

Thanks, Wendy, for embodying the true spirit of Giving Cards.

And thanks to everyone else for their wonderful results, too:

Speaking of cake…

A reader named Kellie described the weekly senior luncheon in her small hometown. It’s hosted by her father’s church, and any time she’s visiting him she likes to help out. Her dad, who’s 83, is a server at the luncheon.

She planned to put the $20 prepaid Visa toward food for the meal, which runs on donations. Not only is the weekly event designed to get seniors out and about, the organizers encourage takeouts. This could be a godsend to someone whose Social Security isn’t stretching as far as they’d thought.

Kellie ended up making cakes for the seniors to enjoy after their lunch. “Most of them snagged a piece before lunch was even served,” she says. Hey, you know what they say about life being uncertain…

When you gotta go…

Some essentials just aren’t available in the food bank. A reader from Fairbanks (Alaska represent!) knows that folks who have trouble paying for food are going to have trouble paying for non-food items.

“Our food bank tries to have some available, but people seldom think to donate that,” Lindsey says.

She found a good sale on TP and applied the $20 prepaid Visa to $25 worth of rolls. No one can say that didn’t make a big difference in some lives.

In a note to Giving Cards, Lindsey thanked them for “giving me this chance to contribute to the Fairbanks food bank.” I’d like to thank you, Lindsey, for giving me an idea of what to do with some of my Swagbucks points: Have a case of toilet paper sent to your city’s food bank. Probably I should make it the Great Northern brand.

The only library in town

For the past four years, a reader named Susan has been curating a Little Free Library in her town of about 1,100 souls. There’s no municipal library there, so it’s no surprise that her LFL is nearly empty every time she stops by to add reading material.

Usually she gets books in bulk from used bookstores online, and for a time used to work for free to get books from a local used bookshop. “But that bookstore closed, and I have been paying for books out of pocket ever since. I am really grateful for the giving card to help stretch my dollars a little further,” she said.

Susan took the $20 prepaid Visa to The Dollar Tree and spent most of it on children’s books. But not all of it: “I found a couple of hardback books for adults that looked interesting, plus a couple of Sudoku and crossword books for adults.”

It’s always fun to see little kids discover new authors. But I expect some adults were delighted to find something tailored to their own needs. What a treat that must have been.

Note: I, too, look for hardbacks at The Dollar Tree when I visit my daughter in Phoenix. Some of them have become Christmas presents.

Angels in the trenches

Meghan decided to help Angels in Motion, a group that ministers to people who are homeless and living with addiction in the Atlantic City and Philadelphia areas. Originally she’d planned to get bottled water and the ingredients to make 30 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

However, when she learned the group would meet soon to assemble “blessing bags,” she decided to buy most-needed items on the group’s Amazon wishlist. Rather than buy them directly from Amazon, though, she did the frugal thing: comparison shopping, in order to stretch that $20 prepaid Visa as far as possible.

Meghan has access to a military commissary, and was able to get 64 Pop-Tarts for $9 less than they cost on Amazon. Then she used that $9 to get 30 pouches of Capri Sun drinks. (Before anyone starts railing about the lack of nutrition in these items: They’re what Angels in Motion clients want.)

In a note to Giving Cards, she thanked them for the chance “to really reflect, think and donate in a mindful (and frugal) way.”

I know Meghan in real life, since she and I both worked at the same newspaper. The comparison shopping – and the compassion – sound exactly like the fellow Jersey girl I remember.

Giving Cards: How to take part

If you’d like to see photos of the gifts mentioned above, visit the Giving Cards Stories page.

And if you have a great donation idea of your own? Head over to the Get a Card page and ask for one. Just so you know: The folks at Giving Cards will ask you to take some pictures and chronicle how you used the card. Your photos and information will help inspire others to think of their own ways to make changes in the world.

Thanks again to everyone who participated. If you request a card and are chosen to receive one, I hope you’ll come back and tell us all about it.