They just keep giving..........

In my attempts to collect water bottles for the hot summer, I had to branch out to churches in the valley.  I went to many churches and many were not on board for the collection drive.  This surprised me.  But luckily I found Mountain View Presbyterian Church in Scottsdale.  I knew the pastor from my childhood and I reached out to him to see if he could mention it to the congregation.  He did more than mention it.  He put it in the bulletin that the 500 person congregation sees every week, talked about it every week, put it on their over head projector and emailed everyone in the congregation.  Surprise is not the right word when we went to pick up the first batch of water bottles.  Over 200 cases of water that's 4800 bottles of water this one church donated to Safe Haven.  The only concern we had was where to put it all.  But luckily, I had room in my office and so for the rest of my internship, I shared my office with thousands of water bottles. 

I guess I underestimated the generosity of people because my experiences up to that point had been luke warm at best.  This church changed my opinion of generosity.  One person from the church donated a pallet of cases of water.  A pallet!  This church has given so much and it was seemingly so simple.  They actually changed people's lives.  On more than one occasion I witnessed clients come in from the heat at Safe Haven, faces beat red, and gasping for water.  Thanks to this church we were able to give it to them and prevent people from dying of dehydration.