Special feature: A leap of faith -- Parishioners respond to church challenge and raise tens of thousands of dollars for charitable causes Special feature: A leap of faith -- Parishioners respond to church challenge and raise tens of thousands of dollars for charitable causes (October 12, 2005)

By J. Ennis Kirkland

Special to the Almanac

In January, during a sermon addressing God and finances, John Ortberg, teaching pastor at the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, offered the congregation what he deemed "a Kingdom Adventure" -- a call to step out and "make a difference for God's Kingdom on Earth."

This "adventure" was a program inspired by fellow pastor and friend Denny Bellessi of Orange County, but that is all Pastor Ortberg would say, at first.

Without disclosing details of what the challenge would entail, he asked volunteers to come forward and stand with him on the chancel. This was a leap of faith on his part -- and theirs.

"I had no idea what to expect," he admits. "My worst nightmare was that nobody would come forward and I would stand up there and sweat."

He need not have worried, as his leap of faith was answered by 118 people, spread over four services, ranging in age from 10 to 90, who bravely stepped up and answered his call.

In front of the rest of the congregation, each volunteer received a crisp $100 bill and simple instructions: Employ the money and invest it in a way that is going to leverage God's work in this world.

Pastor Ortberg encouraged his volunteers to not act hastily and give the money away immediately after the service. Instead, he wanted them to think carefully and consider ways that $100 could make a positive impact on an individual, the community, or the world.

After 90 days the adventurers were to return and tell the story of what had come of each $100 investment.

Three months later the stories began to pour in and the results were staggering: Within 90 days the faith-driven volunteers had turned a total investment of $11,800 into more than $150,000 -- and growing -- in donations that benefit an array of charities.
Change for a penny

Todd Johnson of Menlo Park, an attorney with Jones Day in Menlo Park, knew what he wanted to do with his $100 after he heard Steve Haas of World Vision speak on the growing death toll in Africa due to AIDS.

Astonished and saddened by the huge, and growing, number of lives lost, Mr. Johnson decided to start a campaign that would help people in the United States understand the gravity of the AIDS epidemic. He decided to do this by showing people the scale of the number of lives lost since the beginning of the epidemic in the 1980s -- an estimated 25.4 million, according to UNAIDS -- and he decided to do it one penny at a time.

With the help of his wife Lil and daughters Sara and Emily, Mr. Johnson began to collect pennies.

"We didn't start out to raise money, we wanted to raise awareness." he said.

So far, the Johnsons have managed to accumulate about 1.7 million pennies (more than four tons). If they reach the goal of 25.4 million pennies, the load will weigh an estimated 78.3 tons.

The pennies, originally stored in a corner of the Johnsons' garage, have been moved to the back yard because the weight of the pennies began to cause cracks in the cement floor.

To date, the Johnson family and volunteers have invested more than 100 people-hours, sorting and rolling pennies.

How to eventually display the pennies is as big a project as collecting them. Seventy-eight tons of copper is hard enough to move, much less display. Students from Stanford have gotten involved and are working on ways to display the pennies once the goal has been achieved.

According to Mr. Johnson, the United States has committed $15 billion to AIDS relief in Africa over the next five years. He thinks, however, that timetable could be stepped up considerably: "That same amount could be funded in a year and a half if every American would take three pennies and drop it in a jar every time they drink a soda. When you start thinking about the power of all of us working together to do something about it -- even one penny at a time, it's staggering how quickly we can make a difference."

Once the goal of 25.4 million pennies has been reached, the money ($254,000) will be donated to World Vision and other organizations dedicated to AIDS relief in Africa.
Tsunami relief

When Linda Arrillaga of Portola Valley returned home from church that Sunday in January, she taped the money to her mirror as a reminder of her commitment.

Ms. Arrillaga's first idea was to use the $100 to market products made by underprivileged women in Mexico. This was good, but she wanted more, and so she approached her friend, Eldona Hamel of Woodside, to generate more ideas.

As it turns out, Ms. Hamel had also accepted Pastor Ortberg's challenge, and was more than happy to join forces with her. Being a designer, Ms. Hamel put forth the idea of creating and selling a lapel pin that would observe the Tsunami disaster, with the proceeds donated to a tsunami relief agency.

Excited by this idea, the two women set out to see if such a pin was already available, and found the company Cheap Pins, located in San Diego, more than happy to sell pins to them at cost.

So, the women pooled their $200 and placed an order. While waiting for the pins to arrive, they met Margaret Costello and her daughter Brooke of Atherton, also recipients of the $100 challenge. The mother-daughter duo also had been wondering how to make the most impact with their money, and decided to join the tsunami relief pin campaign.

With four determined women on board and the pins en route, the question remained: which foundation to give the money to. Not wanting to send the funds to a large organization, the group decided to search for a small organization they could come to know and work with personally.

"I was looking for a specific group -- someone tangible that we could touch and see," said Ms. Arrillaga.

After some research, the women decided on a small orphanage on a lagoon in Sri Lanka. The survival story of the members of the orphanage, called Samaritan Home, and Pastor Dayalan Sanders, who leads the home, was so dramatic that it received wide attention.

Seeing a wall of water approaching, Pastor Sanders and his wife gathered up the 28 children and four staff members and crowded them all into a boat built for 15 people. Knowing that the overfilled boat could not outrun the wave, Pastor Sanders turned the boat and faced the wave head on.

Miraculously, he managed to motor his boatload of orphans up the face of the tsunami and toward safety.

Upon hearing the story, Ms. Arrillaga and her fellow pin campaigners knew that the money would go to Pastor Sanders' orphanage.

Selling the pins turned out to be an enormously successful endeavor as volunteers poured in to help the four women. The group of volunteers even included a local preschool where 3- and 4-year old children sold pin door-to-door, raising $1,700.

To date, this small group of women, who initially invested $400, has collected over $21,000 in donations.

Recently, Pastor Sanders, who was speaking in Southern California, made the trip north to meet the four women and speak at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church.
A trip to Mexico

Jacob Marotta, a sixth-grader at Crocker Middle School in Hillsborough, was sitting patiently during a Sunday service. He was waiting to be commissioned, along with his parents and three sisters, for a family mission trip to Mexico when Pastor Ortberg made his call for volunteers.

Jacob, already waiting to be sent to Mexico by the church, was one of the many who marched up to take the challenge, thus committing himself to make a difference in the world for a second time that day.

Like the others who had answered Pastor Ortberg's call, young Marotta was at a loss as to what he was going to do with his newfound funds -- $100 is a lot of money to a 10-year-old. Inspiration struck, however, when Jacob was on the mission trip with his family in Juarez, Mexico.

"The houses there were so shabby, some just old sheets of plywood nailed together," he says. "It ripped my heart to see it, so I decided to use my $100 to help pay for supplies to build more houses."

Affected by the impoverished slums and living conditions that the people of Juarez face, Jacob knew what he wanted to do with his money. First, he contacted Mission Ministries, an organization dedicated to replacing the dilapidated homes in Juarez, and also the group that the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church had coupled with during the Juarez trip.

The buildings that Mission Ministries construct are simple, not much by Bay Area standards, but are palaces in the eyes of the residents of the "colonias" in Juarez, Mexico.

Once Jacob decided where to send the money, the ambitious youngster started to think that $100 was not enough. He sought to collect more by sending letters to family and friends seeking donations.

In his letter, Jacob wrote: "I learned a lot from the people we met in Juarez. I learned how fortunate and grateful I am to live in a house that has heating and plumbing, to have good food and water to drink. I also learned that a bunch of stuff doesn't make people happy."

From 15 letters sent, Jacob received $1,500. Mission Ministries used the money to set up a special fund for the children of Juarez in Jacob's name.

This summer Jacob worked as an office clerk at his father's law firm, the Corporate Law Group in Burlingame, so he could continue to send money and support his special fund.

"The response to this program has been amazing, well beyond my expectations," says Pastor Ortberg. And beyond the expectations of those who took part.

The financial results and impact upon the community at large are astonishing, but the tangible lesson that the volunteers took from this experience must also be acknowledged. Perhaps Todd Johnson summed it best when he said, "It's staggering how quickly we can make a difference."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: J. Ennis Kirkland was born and raised in Menlo Park and has been a member of the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church for 25 years. He is a graphic designer and photographer in Redwood City.
INFORMATION

For more information on the church, go to mppc.org. For information on Todd Johnson's project, go to gotcents.org.

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