Article February 4, 2013 Issue

How our family helped with storm relief

Rick Lipsey

This past fall, I organized a food sale table on Central Park West outside our apartment building with our kids—Alexander, Claudia, Ricky, and Timothy. We went to Costco in the morning to get food and drink supplies to sell, and then the kids offered the stuff to passersby for a few hours. 

The kids had a big “HURRICANE SANDY RELIEF FUND” sign and were not shy about yelling out to potential customers to buy and contribute. I told the kids that in a few days we’d look around and find a good charity to which we’d donate the money. The kids ended up raising a net profit of about $300, but it was a $0.35 contribution that hit home.

A bedraggled man, who looked homeless, walked by the table, paused, looked back, then walked back to the table. He fished what appeared to be all the money he had from a pocket; it was a quarter and a dime, which he put into Claudia’s pink plastic money bank. We offered him a water bottle, for which we were normally asking $1. The man politely declined, saying, “Please just give me a napkin to dry my face.” 