A Beautiful Story of Holiday Generosity

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I discovered The Bloggess a couple of months ago when Jenny Lawson (the Bloggess) had written a post about meeting Neil Gaiman. Since then I have been a regular visitor to this blog due to Jenny's wonderfully hilarious posts that always leave me smiling. But last week Jenny veered away slightly from her regular irreverent style to offer free $30 gift cards to the first twenty people who leave a message on her blog.

If you’re struggling for money right now and don’t know how you’ll give your kids presents then leave me a comment. You don’t have to use your real name or leave a url or prove anything. Just leave me a comment and your email address (always hidden and never used) and I’ll email a $30 Amazon gift card to the first twenty people who leave a comment explaining why it would make a difference in their lives right now.

Jenny had made some extra money through selling blog-related gift cards on Zazzle.com (there is a whole story here about a boar's head that Jenny bought, and which makes for some entertaining reading) and decided to put it towards gift cards for people who could use a little extra financial help for the holidays. The response was staggering and the gift cards were gone in just ten minutes.

But then, people proceeded to leave comments offering their own assistance to other commentors in need and Jenny's original post received over 500 comments with people sharing their heartbreaing stories and others requesting a way to help.

I am absolutely amazed and inspired by what Jenny Lawson has done here and the way her modest gesture snowballed into something so huge and beautiful. The Washington Post wrote a lovely article about it, which you can read here.

In Hebrew there is a phrase that we say to congratulate someone who has accomplished something of great value and honor, Yasher Koach (which is made up of the two Hebrew words for "straight" and "strength"). So Yasher Koach Jenny, you rock!