Weekly Hero - Jenny and the people that donated to her fundraiser

During these troubling times I have found myself wanting to do something more. Actually, I’ve always wanted to “do something more” but I’m often not sure what to do and I feel helpless. When Covid19 began to spread across the country I began to notice a lot of people stepping up in different ways, some small, some going above and beyond. I want to use this space to highlight these wonderful people on a weekly basis. This is my way of “doing something more” by highlighting the positive moments and people that are out there making a difference. It is only a small thing I know, but it makes me happy and I hope it will make you happy too. If you know of someone that you think would make a great Weekly Hero please let me know!

Jenny is a giver and is usually the first one to step up when someone needs help. After the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, there were the peaceful protests and then the riots, as we all know by now. The burning and looting of buildings left many people in those areas without access to daily essentials. Jenny was following threads on social media about these happenings and decided she wanted to do something to help out. She saw that a friend had posted on her Facebook site that she was collecting certain items for donations, so Jenny asked friends and neighbors if they could donate diapers and other non-perishables. Then she wanted to do something MORE.

The first donation site she came across she saw that if she bought everything on the list that was needed it would be $55.00. However, she realized that her current financial situation did not allow her to do that. So she thought that if she could get 55 people to donate a dollar she could reach the amount of money needed and therefore make her donation.

Jenny started a fundraiser on Facebook, explaining what she was doing and asked for a dollar from 55 people. People stepped up! In the first half hour she raised over $300.00! After two hours she was up to $1200.00! This was obviously way over her initial $55.00 and she was elated! She began to hear from many people who wanted to help out but didn’t want to go into Minneapolis or weren’t sure how to go about things so this was the perfect situation. People could donate to Jenny’s fundraiser and she would go do the shopping and deliver the products to the places in need. She did a second Facebook fundraiser and brought in another $320.00 with an additional outside donation of $700.00 bringing in a total of over $2200.00!

Jenny found the site Twin Cities Mutual Aid Project which listed different places that were accepting donations and she was able to divvy up the money between different sites.

I went shopping with her one day to see her in action.

I didn’t realize how much action I would get to experience until we realized that Jenny had locked her keys in the car (probably because of the excitement of having me with her)! There was a slight moment of panic as we had to get the supplies to the donation site by a certain time, but fortunately she had Triple AAA and they sent a nice fellow from Dick’s Valley Service within 15 minutes to save the day and she was able to donate the supplies on time!

Sometimes you don’t know your own power until you just get up and do something!