Generosity’s power can blur class lines
Larry Brown, Spokane restaurant owner, looks a little like actor Sean Connery. Monday, we spent the morning together at the Christmas Bureau. I kept imagining what he’d look like wearing a purple cloak and a gold crown.
I called Larry, and several other big Christmas Fund donors, looking for men to join me for a tour of the Christmas Bureau. I intended to play off the biblical story of the three wise men, those kings of the Orient, who are depicted visiting Jesus after his birth.
Doesn’t matter whether you frame the Bible story in gospel truth or in simple mythology, I told the men I invited on the Christmas Bureau tour. Though several men were called, only Larry made it.
I don’t fault the others, however. I gave them short notice, and it’s a busy time of year. Some who contributed large amounts in the past gave to other causes this year. That’s OK. I wasn’t calling to hit them up for money; it’s not part of my job description, thank goodness.
I was looking for some wise men to venture to the Christmas Bureau, because it is a foreign land for most people who donate to the fund year after year.
More than 33,000 people in need receive toys and food vouchers there during the Christmas season. If you don’t know what to expect where people in poverty gather, the bureau can sound intimidating. You definitely need a guide your first time.
Larry arrived at 9:30 Monday morning. He parked in an icy lot at Spokane County’s fairgrounds and joined a stream of clients headed to the doors.
He was given a blue Christmas Bureau sweatshirt, the official uniform worn by the bureau’s 280 volunteers. The sweatshirts are levelers. Some of the volunteers are wealthy; others are not. The clients can’t tell either way.
Larry told me the history of his company’s association with the Christmas Fund. In 1978, he opened The Onion in downtown Spokane.
“We exceeded our expectations in terms of sales,” he said. “We were grateful and wanted to give back to the community.”
So Larry hand-delivered a check to Dorothy Powers, the esteemed writer for The Spokesman-Review, and he was hooked on the Christmas Fund after meeting her.
Larry’s company grew in success, and donating to the fund became an institutional part of sharing that success. Larry and his business partner, Ken Belisle, now own two Onions and two Frank’s Diners. They employ 200 people, and 65 percent of their employees elect to earmark for the Christmas Fund between 50 cents and $5 each paycheck.
“They are all proud to be part of this,” Larry said. This year, the company’s donation – raised by the employees and matched by the owners – totaled $7,600.
During his tour, Larry sat at the intake table, the first stop for clients. He listened as they told volunteers their estimated monthly incomes. Many live on between $500 and $700 a month. Larry wondered later, “How on God’s green earth do people make it on that?”
He also looked over the shoulders of the volunteers who operate the computers. The businessman in him was impressed by the way the computer system catches the few clients who try to cheat the system.
Little is written in the Bible about the wise men’s visit. Crèche scenes fill in the blanks. The shepherds, the poor and struggling of their time, stand in the stable alongside the wise men, who were obviously men of means, considering their gifts – gold, frankincense and myrrh. Yet one spectacular star led them all to a shared destination.
The Christmas Bureau is not a bucolic crèche scene. The chill of the outside enters the door with clients who step into the cavernous fairgrounds building.
Yet volunteers and clients are equal there, united under one spectacular gesture of giving and receiving. By the end of his tour Larry understood this, because he was the wise man who said, yes, I’ll travel there to see.