Page 22 - May 2015 Catalyst

10-Year-Old Raises Money to Feed the Homeless
As many Americans look for ways to survive in what some call a collapsing economy, a Heathwood Hall Episcopal fourth grader is pushing back to those who say she’s “too young to volunteer.” Ten-year-old Jasmine Jones is us- ing her creativity and artwork to help feed the homeless after she was inspired by others.
Jasmine has been interested in helping the homeless since she was six-years-old. Her par- ents and older brother have been volunteering at Christ Central Columbia missions for many years. On several occasions Jasmine asked her mom if she could help and was told, “no you are too young.” As a young child while driving to school she would see people sleeping on the park benches or lying in a corner on the f loor in the post office. She would ask, “who are those people?”, “What are they doing?” When she accompanied her mom to Christ Central, she would see the same people coming there for lunch.
Disturbed at the thought of her homeless neigh- bors not having a place to sleep or eat, Jasmine began brainstorming for things she could do to help. Her first idea was a lemonade stand. Her plan was to sell Jasmine tea and fresh squeezed lemonade for $5 a cup. After several months of going to Christ Central, seeing the number of homeless people, she decided she could not sell enough tea and lemonade to make an impact.
Jasmine’s papa’ is the Bishop of the Ecumenical Church Worldwide. Every Sunday Jasmine’s family prepares and served Sunday dinner to the homeless members of Victory Ecumenical Church. Sometimes Jasmine accompanies her
papa’ to the Chefs store to purchase food for the meals. Each time she ask the same ques- tion, “so where do you get the money to pay for this food?” When the cashier gives her papa’ the total of the bill, she says, “I know you can’t pay for the food with the money you collect in the offering, because it’s never that much.” Then she says, “papa’ what can I do to help?” Her Pape’ response is always, “you can pray.”
One day while watching TV Jasmine got the idea to sell T-shirts to help feed the home- less. She went online to Booster.com and de- signed a T-shirt. After setting up an account she remembered that her papa’ told her to never submit or accept anything online until she get approval from him or mommy. She rush upstairs to get approval from her papa’. Excitedly telling him that she created a T- shirt to sell for $20 to help feed the homeless at Victory Ecumenical.
22 CityLight.org
May 2015