I remember in my shop assistant days getting cheques from customers who banked with them. It felt like the punchline of an elaborate joke. At the time I was selling bikes. The kids from the council estate would have their parents or grandparents save up all year in a special book, paying by instalments. Then, at Christmas time, they would get a Raleigh bike, not quite the cheapest but certainly not the most expensive…
This reminds me a story a friend of mine told me. When he was a kid he had a job delivering the local free news paper around his local town in the UK. This was at a time when local free news papers were still a thing. At Christmas time he had a plan, he knock on the doors of houses on his round and explain that he was their local paper delivery boy and ask for tips. He did this first on the part of his route with gat…
I had to call my mum out to help me carry the vast amount of loot - if only I had that money now!
I think that the free newspapers were not welcome by all. Whereas if you are delivering someone their Daily Telegraph or Times then you are of value to them. So I received good tips from all classes of people, although there were the old folk that thought that a 5p tip on a weekly basis was generous. They might stretch to £1 at Christmas time.
The other benefit of this network - I had something like 100 customers in the rural shires - was school sponsored walks. I just had to ask the customer base to sponsor me and I would raise ten times the amount of anyone else.
But with it came an important life lesson...
I was never able to get all of the four figure sum in on time. People would be on holiday, they would move, they would die or just somehow not be around for me to ask them for the money they pledged.
Hence I would be at least £50 - £100 short. I didn't want to pay that out of my own pocket but the school was strict about the rules. They couldn't have any kids pocketing the money, which is fair enough.
So I never received the prize money for raising the most money. Someone else would get to the stage in school assembly to get the £10(!) book token and the kudos that went with it.
My teachers and my friends knew I had raised vastly more than whomever got to the stage, typically they would have large sums donated by relatives, not hundreds of small sums pledged by everyone in two villages.
I learned from that more than I would have done had I been up on the stage collecting the prize. We don't do charity for fame and prizes. The recognition comes in other ways.
Other ways?
Well, apart from the good causes aspect, I was part of the community. I had a support network that I would not have had if I was not delivering the papers. I also got actual respect from my teachers, so years later I was able to do work placement things for the teacher that had put me through the wringer for being tardy paying in the vast sums pledged to 'Save the Children'. Also, in my adult life I think I understand 'personal philanthropy' (not charity) better than most.