Paying it Forward

Okay, this has been a long time coming. A few weeks ago I promised an update with some great news from Meijer. Well, still great news, but there was a little snag. Here's the scoop. Jon, I'll call him my friend, works at Meijer. He was very interested in finding some unfortunate kids who could use some assistance with back to school shopping. Turns out I work with about half the unfortunate kids in Indiana, so I emailed Jon and let him know I could get some kids for him. Jon wrote back and said he would be very glad to include me in the list of recipients for the "Meijer Gives Back" program. I was thinking I would get a free back pack or a $25 gift card, and was already making plans to take out one or two of the kids I work with to buy something. Then, one of the higher ups at Meijer got wind of the program and informed Jon that Meijer doesn't just give money away all willy nilly. Jon had to en

d his program. He said he would send a consolation gift. I am now thinking possibly a Meijer sticker or something kinda lame. A week or so later. Bam! Jon comes through with a $100 consolation prize!!

Way more than I was expecting in the first place. I was also free to use it however I wished. Immediately I was thinking gummy bears, but my wife insisted on still using it for kids. Around the same time, Gateway Woods (my place of work) was having their annual benefit auction. My wife and I decided to use our $100 gift card to buy something to donate. We chose this very slick black ipod.

We then went to the auction to see how much the ipod would fetch. We figured it would pull at least $200. A lot for an ipod nano, but it was a benefit auction. Well, the bidding started at about $50 and hands were flying up like a commercial for "Sure" deodorant. The auctioneer could hardly keep up until the price got to about $300, then things slowed down just a bit. A tall 20 something in a Purdue shirt had his eye on the prize and wasn't faltering. He won the iPod for a mere $450! Then he gave it to this kid,

who was about jumping out of his socks.

Thanks Meijer for making possible a $450 donation to Gateway Woods.