Donations of Another Kind

Since the Student Services Department includes scholarships, we work closely with different kinds of donors.  Many of the people who provide our scholarships are businessmen.  So it's not unusual for me to get a call from a scholarship donor who is offering something other than money. 

I remember a few years ago when there was a shipment of okra that could not be delivered, and the owner offered it to our students.  So everyone had okra that night for supper! 

Another time, a subsidiary of the Nestle company tried out a new product -- strawberry-flavored cream.  They had had great success with the regular canned whipping cream, but it seemed nobody liked the strawberry cream.  They had shelves full of this product.  So, our students had the opportunity to think of many uses for strawberry cream over the next several weeks.

Another time, there was a Christian businessman who owned a hotel, and he was replacing the bedsheets.  He didn't want the old ones to go to waste, so we became the recipients of 1,000 white sheets!  About half were still in very good condition, and we used them in our dorms for several years.  The ones that were not so great became cleaning rags, so we also had a pretty impressive supply of rags for several years.

And the latest?  There is a Chinese restaurant owner who became a Christian.  The restaurant uses large quantities of pork every day to make their soups.  They boil the pork for hours, and they just use the broth for their delectable dishes.  At the end of the day, the meat is thrown out.  So the restaurant owner's pastor encouraged him to give it to Christian organizations instead.  We became the regular Friday recipients of about 50 kg of boiled pork.

 

Every Friday afternoon, we send someone to pick up the pork from the restaurant, and then these students are assigned to divide it into 1 kilo bags for distribution.  With the previous food gifts, like the okra and strawberry cream, they were one-time events, so there was quite a bit of excitement.  But his one is weekly, and the novelty is beginning to wear off.  It's becoming like the manna and quail in the wilderness.  So I have appointed a "Pork Coordinator" to help the students think of creative ways they can bless others with the pork!  Last week they shared it with a church that has a food-distribution program in a squatter area, and they are trying to come up with new ways to manage this unusual blessing.  What would you do if you received 50 kilos of pork every Friday afternoon?