The Importance of Generosity

Seven forty five: I am shuffling around getting all the supplies gathered and set up for the busy morning ahead of me.

 

Eight o’clock: the doors open and patrons flood into the church basement welcoming each other with “good mornings” and finding their way to a table.

 

Eight thirty: Mr. Noth, the Executive Director of the Riverwest Food Pantry, stands up and a hush overwhelms the room. He greets everyone by leading a prayer and then poses the same question to us each week. What is generosity?

 

For the past three years, I have been asked the exact same question, and that answer, now engraved in my mind forever, has helped guide me to understanding the importance of generosity. Mr. Noth explains every morning that no one is too poor that they don’t have anything to give, and no one is too rich that they do not have any real needs.

 

Also, over the past year, Campus Ministry has been teaching and focusing on the importance of living, serving, and praying generously through their yearlong theme. My service has not only enriched my understanding of generosity, but also has helped me to embrace it and help me live it out in my own life.

 

I want to take you back about three years when I was placed in a class where I was able to complete virtually anything. With this platform, I decided to take a service angle and dig deeper into a previous service experience at the Riverwest Food Pantry. I soon developed a relationship with the pantry and was able to launch my own project: The Riverwest Reading and Activity Corner. When I began going down to the pantry, I was doing it out of mandate. I had started this project, so I was determined to finish it. But in reality, there was no finishing, and I became very passionate about my work. For the next three years, I continued creating relationships with volunteers, interns, and children. And I have begun to see my work pay off. I was no longer going to the pantry once a month to make sure everything was going well, but I began going every week out of love for the children, the patrons, and the entire community as a whole.

 

When I began working at the pantry, Mr. Noth’s message of generosity was always in the back of my mind, but I had never fully understood it or seen it in action. Not until one morning in particular which completely shifted my perspective on his message. It was a slow morning at the pantry. My mom and I were talking with a young boy and two young girls. As their mother came over to get them ready to leave, I allowed the children to take a few books home with them. They were so excited! They each picked a few favorites such as Power Rangers, Star Wars, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Just as the children were leaving the young boy, Jerome, sought out my mother and pulled a pin out of his pocket. He quietly gave it to my mother and told her that it would keep her bad dreams away. In Jerome’s own simple way, he wanted to give back for what we had given him. We will never know the real reason Jerome gave my mom and I this pin, but it helped me to see that this young boy was able to understand Mr. Noth’s message of generosity, and now, so did I.

 

Generosity is a catholic virtue, a cornerstone of our faith, and value that has been instilled in many of us since we were young. Mr. Noth’s ongoing ability to articulate this simple message and continue to emphasize its importance has not only inspired me but it has also empowered a community of people who can continue to live his message out and carry it into the city of Milwaukee.

 

With the help of DSHA, Ms. Monson, and x2vol, I have begun coordinating fellow DSHA students to come to the pantry with me. Being in somewhat of a leadership position at Riverwest Food Pantry, I have had the opportunity to see many volunteers, including DSHA students, create relationships with many of the children at the pantry. Not only do these relationships blossom through the three to four hours that we are at the pantry, but the students begin to see the message of generosity play out in their own lives. The exposure to the pantry through the Kid’s Corner helps to continue to spread the importance of generosity into the DSHA community.