Jami Says, You Gotta Work

A knock at the door yesterday turned out to be our teenage neighbor, with a clipboard. Ah, we all know what that means, right? Time to order hoagies or purchase ornaments or chocolates or something along those lines. Sigh. But I was there and my son will be there, so let's see it . . . "Hi, we have a teacher at school who has two kids who have cystic fibrosis and so the basketball team is raising money for the cystic fibrosis foundation." "Okay," I reply, waiting for the pitch. "So, uh, any donation you would like to give ..." Donation? I couldn't believe it. I queried further, "Just donate? You don't have to run laps or shoot baskets or anything?" "No," he tells me, looking vaguely confused, "We're just collecting money." Well, folks, you can call me crazy, but this is exactly what's wrong with society today. People just want you to give them stuff. Don't get me wrong, between band, choir, swim team, youth group and girl scouts (up until 8th grade for the scouts), I did my fair share of fundraising. But we had to do something for the money. Wash cars, make hoagies, some sort of "a-thon" which required us to attempt to do something for a longish period of time - swim, walk, etc. I even did a radio-a-thon in college during which I stayed live on-air with my radio partner Marcus for 26 hours. (NOTE: this is a BAD idea). The point I'm making is that yes, we did something that may not have been of actual value to the person giving the money (walk-a-thons don't help the giver much) but we put forth effort. We exerted ourselves in the spirit of "earning" the money. I gave the kid $3. It would've been a fiver if he'd had to do something to get it. I should have made him dance on my porch or something. Am I wrong?