The Quad-City Times - News, Sports and more from the Quad Cities region or Iowa and Illinois

You are not logged in.
Login

Log in to qctimes.com
Email:
Password:
Remember my information.
Register
Quadsville
Site Help

A big-hearted bunch, that's us!

Font Size:

By Bill Wundram | Wednesday, July 16, 2008 12:42 AM CDT | () comments

LADIES and gentlemen and children of all ages … It’s a grand old giving place, this Quad-Cities. We’re big-hearted souls with deep pockets. We’re ready to help, bless us all …

Pocketbooks open to buy dishwasher

At least a half-dozen Quad-Citizens have offered to cough up $2,200 to buy a new commercial dishwasher for Café on Vine, a place in Davenport where the hungry can get a free meal. The old dishwasher defied repair. Paper plates haven’t been practical. This column told of the desperate need for $2,200.

I hadn’t poured the milk on my cornflakes the morning the dishwasher plea appeared when I got a call at home: “Where do I send the money?”

Within 10 minutes of the first offer to buy a new dishwasher, a bank had a customer who also wanted to buy one. Minutes later, a friend of one of the café’s volunteers was ready to foot the bill. Then, a company sent two service technicians who tried — in vain — to fix the old one.

Sister Bea Snyder, who oversees Café on Vine for the Sisters of Humility, says, “I’m blown away by the generosity.

“The calls kept coming in to buy us a dishwasher. When one person learned we already had a donor, they offered to pay for the installation of the new one.”

Sister Bea is an exuberant person. “I just love it … all of this goodness.”

From the man who collected change

Every night, for more years than his wife, Cathy, could remember, Mike Donahue of LeClaire put his pocket change in a jar. Before Mike died recently, at 62, he cashed in all that change. It came to nearly $300. He gave the money to his daughter, Tina Dunn of Carbon Cliff, to divvy up among the 22 members of the Dreamcatchers 4-H Club she leads. The kids were to pay it forward, doing good with the money, even using it to raise more cash for kind deeds. They could not ask their parents for more money, and they could not simply hand someone $10.

One of the Dreamcatchers bought a fan for an elderly person. Others bought food for pet shelters. They bought groceries for food pantries. One took two homeless people out to lunch and learned interesting things, like one of them had served in Vietnam. Some raised more money to give to good causes by mowing lawns and opening lemonade stands.

All the “pay it forwards” make up the club’s booth theme at this week’s Rock Island County Fair.

A $5,400 cheer to cheerleaders

Cheerleaders don’t just romp and cheer at games anymore. They contribute thousands of hours of community service. Example: The $5,400 that Pleasant Valley High cheerleaders just raised for the family of one of the Boy Scouts who lost his life in that Little Sioux tornado disaster.

The PV cheerleaders decided on a car wash. They began selling tickets a month ago. Before washing the first car, they had raised $4,000. One cheerleader had advance tickets sales and sponsorships of $1,100. The day of the car wash was gloomy and wet, but it netted $1,000.

“One car came along and the driver gave a $100 bill and asked not to have his car washed,” says Pam Cinadr, head cheer coach. “People were paying to have their cars washed in the rain.”

It all came out this week to a grand total of $5,400. “We were anxious to pay it forward,” says the coach.

Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or wundram@qctimes.com. Comment on this column at qctimes.com.