When I was a teen, my boyfriend's family in San Diego had adopted a Mexican family from Tijuana to be the recipient of their donations. I was the first person who could translate between the two families and got to hear an interesting story.
It all started when the San Diego family had bought a used car and wanted to fix it up and sell it to make a little money. They found this shop over teh border where eleven kids were running around. The mechanic did an excellent job on the car, and later an excellent job redoing the interior - the reconditioning was perfect. After realizing the poverty level of the Mexican family, the family from San Diego decided to buy another car and this time give all the money they made on the sale of the car after it was fixed to the mechanic and his family.
They did this multiple times.
It took the sale of four cars for the mechanic and his family to figure out what was going on. Each time the San Diego family came with another car and some money, the mechanic assumed that as a customer, they wanted an even BETTER and more expensive job fixing up the car they had brought. ...While the family from San Diego just wanted to give the Mexican family some money that represented their true efforts from the sale of the cars on the other side of the border.
Hope that you're in a position to make someone's life better this Holiday season!
