Giving it away ...

Today I helped with a wonderful event today. Our local Kiwanis Club, of which I am a member, hosts an annual Soup & Pie lunch/dinner. We serve 5 different kinds of soup and at least 8 kinds of pie. The members of Kiwanis underwrite the food costs, we sell advertising in a book that is available to everyone and people buy tickets for $5. This entitles them to as much soup and pie as they would like, while they are sitting at our place. It is a tiring, but fun event to work. I spent about half of my 4 hour shift washing dishes. (Don't tell my wife.)

All of this is done to raise money for scholarships. We then choose qualified applicants and give them a $1,500 scholarship (the money is not always the same depending on how many we give) for college. This is the 25th year of doing this wonderful event. The first year they gave out $600 total to 2 or 3 students (that went a lot further in 1983). Last year we gave out 6 or 7 $1,500 scholarships. We now have a large enough fund that we are giving from the interest and letting it continue to grow, insuring that scholarships will be available long after we are all gone.

What a great legacy a handful of people began. People come from an hour away to eat, but more importantly to support the cause. Every member of our little Kiwanis club pony's up the money to cover the costs and nearly all of us work anywhere from 4 to 12 hours to see this happen. How cool is that?

Now if a small group will work that hard, and give that much, for scholarships how much are we willing to work and give to see people get the ultimate scholarship of eternal life with Christ?