"My girl lives here"

by Amy Frykholm

When my friend Ali’s 13-year-old daughter came home from a youth retreat, she was excited and energized. “Mom, look at this map of India!” she said taping it to her wall. “My girl lives here.” Hannah pointed to a speck on the map.

“What girl?” Ali asked.

“The girl I’m sponsoring. Isn’t that great? I just have to pay $30 a month and I can support her.”

At the retreat, leaders of a worldwide relief organization had obviously done a great job of communicating to young people the importance of the issues of poverty and the significance of wealthy people making a contribution. The idea of a single girl in India awaiting support from a girl in the United States appealed to Hannah’s imagination and inspired her. But when she found out that the organization had convinced the children to sign commitments, Ali was incensed.

“What were they thinking?” she said to me. “They stir the kids up emotionally and shoulder them with a permanent responsibility they aren’t ready to bear. It isn’t about the money exactly, but where is Hannah supposed to get $30 a month, every month? She doesn’t earn that at home. Now if she can’t come up with the money she fails a child in India. This experience is only going to make her cynical.”

Ali did not want to communicate to her daughter that giving was a bad idea or that she shouldn’t care about children in India. At the same time, she wanted to be sure that giving was done sustainably, responsibly and with a rich sense of connection. Eventually, after much discussion and research, Hannah withdrew from her commitment to this large organization and chose a small orphanage much closer to home. She and her sister together must come up with $300 a year to support a three-year-old girl named Suri. Before the year is out, the girls will travel together to Mexico to meet Suri and learn more about her experiences.

Perhaps all giving is good, but I agree with Ali: the less abstract and even less emotional we can make that giving, channeling it toward places and people that we can connect to on many levels, the more likely charitable giving is to help transform us and the world.