Red Shield Appeal weekend - any stories to share

[something from the fridge]

Hey all

Here in australia it is the Red Shield Appeal.

anyone have any stories to share from their collecting?

I had a guy in his mid - late twenties call me over to where his car was parked and him and his mate got all their change for us. He then told us that he had just done his will and that if his family isnt' around, everything goes to the salvos. I thought it was pretty cool that we have that much of an impact that a young guy would do that.

[Andy Broadley]

A weekend!!!!

We get two weeks every February

[chickette]

I think that it is the whole week. The door knocking/collecting is mainly down on the weekend and during the week, it's people sitting on stalls at various places. That's how it usually works here anyway.

I have heard a couple of stories from people at church. One was a guy, about 18 went into someone's house and got to ride around on their little electric scooter in their kitchen.

Hehe. Except that is one thing you aren't meant to do...Enter people's houses. Although I did it a couple of years ago, cos I walked into a window awning and put a hole in my head, so this old lady that lived nearby took me inside cos she was a retired nurse and fixed my head up. :D

[someone_else]

i collected on sunday morning.....

here is a few stories

i took a group of high school kids out knocking all of who had volenterd though our youth leader going to their school.

i had one lady who had a $10 note and told me it was all she had left for the week but wanted to give me $2.. how cool is that, that she would give some away when she had so little..

one guy told me that if he has not family when he dies everything will go to the salvos.

an old lady comments on how hot it was and wanted to give me some sunscreen to put on.

one of the other groups in our area was all high school boys none of who looked like the type to want to door knock for the salvos got given $100 by one lady.

had lots of people tell me they had been waiting for us to come by.

[something from the fridge]

i went to one house and the guy said he didn't have any cash, and showed us his empty wallet. he gave us a can of drink though which really hit the spot.

[someone_else]

from a more personal view on the day........

i am always doing stuff for other people. normaly i love to do this however over the last few weeks i have been very run down and in need of a break so when the 'will you help with red shield" Question came around i said no. simply becasue i cant do everything everyone asks me. so i was not going to do it. lol sure ok next part. i do whats called work for the dole its a programe where you do volenter work in order to get goverment $ benifits. i do this at my local corps (very handy) and as we did not have church on sunday morning of red shield i was down a few hours as i was not doing sunday school.i had to make the hours up. the only way of making up the hours was to collect on sunday morning. so after a month of saying i was not going to do it on the friday i said i would, becasue i had to make up the work for the dole. s

so on sunday morning i got up and went of too collect even though i did not want to. but God blessed me. i had a good morning and was blessed by seeing how many young people had come to help us collect. i was encouraged by the conversations i had with peoples whos doors i knocked on. all in all i had a good time and at the end of it felt happy to have helped out and im glad i did

[Andy Broadley]

There was always one old guy who used to save all his small change up for in a jar (1p & 2p). Trouble is he lived about half way round the route we took when collecting his area, so whoever went to his house had to cart a large bag of coins around for over an hour. Everybody knew which house he lived at and we used to try and work it so that someone else went to his door.

Also one of our officers (the female of the species!), used to vanish for half an hour twice weekly during our collecting nights. Took us a while to realise that she always managed to get invited in for a cup of tea just as 'Coronation Street' was starting (Brit version od Neighbours but no Kylie).

[elm0]

(Brit version of Neighbours but no Kylie).

That sounds like a slight improvement....