He was on Twitter, his social media platform of choice, when he came across a story about a guy who donated his half of a 50-50 raffle from a Washington Capitals' hockey game. The Caps, who were playing the Penguins that night, had slated their half of the pot to support the Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh, which is managing recovery efforts from the shooting that took place at the Tree of Life synagogue last month. The winner of the other half, an 8-year season ticket holder, who was attending the game with his teenage son, decided to do the same.
Sounds pretty nice, a tidy little sum of money donated to support a worthy cause.
Except this guy's half of the take totaled $19,285.
"Would you have been willing to donate that money?" Mr. Ginley asked me.
"Maybe part of it," I replied. "But no, honestly, not all of it."
The winner admitted he would not have gotten out his checkbook and donated this sum. But he said "it was easy" to do so, given that it was just a matter of signing a paper declining the winnings.
I thought it would be interesting to find out who this guy is and what the rest of his life is like but, alas, he wished to remain anonymous.
But the dad wasn't the only hero here. His son asked his dad, prior to the game when it was announced where the Caps' half of the winnings would be donated, if he could spend his own money to buy some tickets. Together, they bought $100 in raffle tickets.
And they didn't check the ticket numbers until they were heading out of the arena after the game.
With all of the outrageous nonsense that continued to spew from the leader of our torn-up country this past week, reading this story soothed my soul a little.
Love does trump hate.
Repeat and repeat and repeat.
Oh, and by the way, the ticketholder and his son? They're not Jewish.
They just wanted to help.
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