I went door knocking this morning on behalf of The Salvation Army for their annual Red Shield appeal. I saw an ad in the local paper and thought "yeah, I could do that". I had hoped I could rope a friend in to come along for moral support and maybe even receipt-writing duties, but my friends were all busy. Either that, or they're actually all heartless and selfish. And liars. So I took my map and my little bag and wearing my special red lanyard, I began to knock on my designated doors. I soon realised that knocking on people's doors prior to 10am on a Sunday morning doesn't always illicit a response. But kudos to those who opened their doors with bed hair, pre make-up faces and brightly coloured dressing gowns.
The vast majority of the people who opened their doors gave a donation - whether it was $1.20 or $20. They were literally the two ends of my scale. It was strange to unlatch people's gates and let myself onto someone else's property, not knowing who the heck lived there or what response I would get. But it turns out people aren't so scary after all. Out of the few who didn't give a donation, most of them said that they had already donated the day before. There were only two people who didn't. The first was a lady probably not much older than myself. She answered the door of her slightly derelict house with a genuine but slightly embarrassed smile. I explained that I was collecting for the Red Shield appeal and she awkwardly replied, "oh, we don't really have any money at the moment". I assured her that was fine and wished her a good day but even now, several hours later, I can still see her face in my mind. She didn't seem at all like she was making excuses not to give. In fact, I actually sensed that she really wanted to give, but just couldn't. I think she actually apologised and as I walked away, I wondered if I shouldn't turn back and give her some of the money I had collected so far. Or maybe I could have told her that she shouldn't apologise to me, but rather I should apologise to her. For living in the same post code as people like her who are desperately struggling to make ends meet, and not caring enough to do anything about it. There are people all around us who are doing it tough and not eating proper meals and barely scraping by and we just shrug our shoulders and say the government should do more to help them. Or maybe they should just work harder. The second person was a man who told me "we're just not in a position to give, sorry". The door wire was that stuff you can't see through from the outside, so I have no idea who he was or what sort of expression he had on his face. Maybe that's for the better. It made me sad though. To think that there's people living in relatively well-to-do areas of Melbourne that can't spare $1 to give away.
On the positive side though, I did have a nice chat with an old lady at one of the houses who donated $20, and I had the feeling that it's not often she gets visitors knocking on her door. I kind of got that feeling with most people though, as if they were surprised by a little bit of unexpected human interaction. Quite a few people must have seen my walking up their driveways and opened the door with money already in hand, eager to donate. One guy in particular stands out in my mind. He was kinda rough looking, with tattoos up his arm, scruffy hair and cheap-looking clothes. His house looked pretty run down and it was obvious this wasn't a guy swimming in money. He went off and came back to me with maybe $2 in change and said "sorry it's not much, but it's all I've got". I couldn't help but think of the story in the Bible where Jesus is standing in the temple, watching all the people putting money into the treasury and there's all these rich people coming up and dropping in large amounts of money and walking away patting themselves on the back as they go. Then this poor widow walks up and drops two little coins into the treasury. Two almost worthless little coins. And Jesus says, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on."
