[Magdalen] Quiet Pub

[ME Michaud]

I send or bring cards with either a photo (like the ducklings one) or a
little
drawing, explaining that the gift will help shelter pets or buy rosin for
bows
or ballet shoes or whatever. Trying to engage their imagination.

I think children need to be led into the world. So much of their actual
lives
being regimented and proscribed in pretty awful ways sometimes. A little
joy in being the occasion for aid to something important to them.

As you can probably tell, my mother and grandmother did this for me.
My grandmother kept a bed in the local hospital where poor women,
and especially unmarried women, could give birth. When I was younger,
I thought it was an actual bed. Later, of course, I realized she was just
available to be called on to pay or help pay their hospital bills.

So this is hard-wired in me from an early age.

When I was a kid, people used to go to the rector and say "Joe the
fisherman
has been laid up and out of work. Here's ten bucks, because they need fuel
oil."
And the rector would send the heating oil and tell them it was from the
church.
Weird New Englanders and their charity vs pride thing.
-M


On Thursday, December 15, 2016, Lynn Ronkainen <houstonklr at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wonderful idea! Do you give the child gift benefactors/recipient
> information about the choice and why you picked it in honor of them
>