Homeless Donate Money to Red Cross to Help Haiti

A group of homeless people in Baltimore chipped in all of their money to send to help relief efforts in Haiti.

Since the earthquake in Haiti occurred, the American Red Cross has received more than $137 million in donations from people eager to help the devastated country recover. But one of the smallest gifts—for a mere $14.64—made one of the biggest impacts at the Red Cross headquarters in Central Maryland last week.

The envelope contained a mix of coins and crumpled dollar bills, rather than the checks that the Red Cross employees were accustomed to seeing. But the donors had no bank accounts to draw from—they were a group of homeless people from a shelter on Guilford Avenue in Baltimore.

The shelter residents had been inspired to give during a church service at the shelter, where the pastor had discussed the recent quake in Haiti. Although they had very little to their own names, they realized that the survivors of the earthquake had even less, and were moved to action. The pastor had never imagined that they would donate the little money that they had, but that’s what they insisted on doing.

“Just the thought of those people huddled together in a shelter and seeing a need beyond themselves is enough to give anybody chills,” the Red Cross’ public relations director, Linnae Anderson, told the Baltimore Sun. “What a remarkable example of the human spirit.”