The Gift Card That Keeps On Giving
A little while ago I was pulling up to a busy intersection in my fair town, and one of the few that ever has any homeless-type dudes. You know the ones, they make the rounds up and down the waiting cars with their sharpie and cardboard signage hoping for some guilt-ridden eye contact. There’s all kinds of debate about whether or not giving these cats money is actually helping them or not, but I kind of tend to think that’s just an excuse on our part. Sure, maybe the risk is there that my young friend will use my pocket change for ill rather than good, but I have yet to read anything about evaluative generosity in my Bible, so I’m just going to have to trust God and give, I think.
Anyway, this dude came sauntering up to my Jeep and I’m not much of a cash-carrying guy in today’s land of plastic money, so I was out of luck. Then I noticed it on my dash – a half used Tim Horton’s gift card with at least a few bucks left on it. “Huh”, I thought, “at least he could get a hot coffee and maybe a sandwich”. So I gave him the card and got a curious smile in return and I was on my way with something to think about…at least until the next light.
Fast forward, in my daily distractionary web surfing, I stumble on this site. It’s called Gift Card Giver. I’m not going to write a big long explanation or intro to this, it’s just cool and people should do it. Great idea. (If you don’t get the connection to worship, read Amos 5 or Isaiah 1.)
I love it when I find out my ideas aren’t original, and that someone has done a bigger and better job already.
They should really look into giving eGift cards instead of plastic. Each year, 75 million lbs of PVC is dumped into landfills on account of plastic gift cards. Check out eGift card directory for a list of retailers that offer eGift cards.
Jim – That’s a good rule of thumb for folks in general, for sure. Point of order, though, these guys aren’t necessarily recruiting people to purchase new gift cards to donate, they’re more into collecting the “leftovers” of already-purchased gift cards. For example, if you get one for Christmas and spend most of it but there’s $2.89 left on it, you can send it to them and they pool all the cards and leftover balances. Regardless, your “green” thought is a good one to keep in mind.