Cleveland Football Fundraiser

As you drive through the highways and biways of our great country (what exactly is a biway, anyway?), you see lots of interesting stuff.

I recently made a trip to Beaumont. On the way, I drove through the thriving metropolis of Tarkington (no red light, just a water tower). There was, though, a four-way stop sign. At the stop sign, a firefighter was making himself into a pretty good traffic obstacle as he stradled the lanes, trying to raise money for the local firefighters. You know, one of those deals where someone stands in the road and collects money from passer-bys for certain causes in a boot or a can or something.

That made me think about the fact I've never been a big fan of the guy or gal standing in the middle of the road, raising money for something. Besides the obvious safety hazard, something just seems sort of off about the whole thing.

Then, on my way back from Beaumont, there were two men and two boys raising money, with one of each on each side of an intersection underneath a freeway in Cleveland. This was causing traffic delays and the boys were dangerously close to the road. But what was most offensive about this was that they were raising money for the local youth football organization.

What business do they have pedaling themselves to the people who pass by on US-59 to raise money for a sports league? Seems to me that money should come from somewhere else . . . like from the families in the league, maybe???

This may be a bit of an overreaction. Probably because it made me think back to a similar situation that really got me going.

When we lived in Georgia, there was a certain intersection in town where groups of people would solicit funds for different things, from Girl Scouts to local law enforcement . . . to church youth ministries. That's the one that really got me going. I have been doing fundraisers for church youth ministries for over a decade. I have spent countless hours doing all sorts of random work and have enlisted good people to work their rear-ends off doing all sorts of random work to help send our youth to camps, mission trips, etc. And then I see a youth ministry a year or two ago just standing by the road wanting people to give them money to go on a trip . . . for, well, nothing. Just for standing by the road. As one might expect, I was not too thrilled to see that.

I think what really gets me is the expectation behind all of these things. People raising funds for something, specifically young people, do not need to learn an expectation that they will be given money just because. If there is a lesson in the many fundraisers I have helped do, and there generally is nothing fun about fundraisers, it's that you do work to help raise funds. Standing beside the road, I'm sure, is hot and not necessarily fun. But when you just stand on the road, what exactly are you doing? What type of service are you performing for others in which they could feel compelled to give you money?