One Single Dollar

It started out like most Tuesday nights in this community at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon: scouts straggling in, talk of the weather and the ski season about to begin, an eventual request to settle down for the requisite business at hand. No doubt there was another merit badge to tackle. Before long however, one of the adult leaders, a guy named Gary Peterson, had a different item of business for this band of 8 teenage boys to consider. He had an envelope in his hand and a story that came with it.

It seems that two weeks ago, Peterson’s Sunday School teacher Taylor Hartman had taught a lesson on the Parable of the Talents. Peterson refreshed their memories about the story where a group of men were given varying amounts of money and told to go do something with it. When the eventual accounting came due, all had increased their money except one who had taken his coins and buried them. The gist of the story was simple: it doesn’t matter how much you start with, it’s what you do with it that counts.

Back to the envelope. Everyone in Hartman’s Sunday School class were given an envelope with money in it – anywhere from a dollar to $100. As luck would have it, Peterson got one single dollar. Hartman challenged each of them to do something with what they had been given so Peterson put the lone dollar on the table and asked the scouts for suggestions. The first thoughts, the roulette table at Wendover and a frosty at Wendy’s, were dismissed out of hand. After all, it would be nice to do something good with it. Donating it to charity seemed a fine idea with the boys. Then Peterson hooked them with a simple request – “Could you all just match this one single dollar? Then we would have $10 to donate.” All agreed that they could swing a dollar and so the pot grew.

Another leader, Craig Osterloh, suggested they give the money to Operation Smile, a charity he had been involved with for years. He explained they do free surgeries around the world on kids with facial deformities. They are getting ready to celebrate their 25^th Anniversary next year by operating on 5,000 children around the world – all in the same week. That felt like a fit — kids helping kids. In the midst of this discussion an unsuspecting soul, Jeff Schmidt walked in to chase them out of the room. It seems someone else had it scheduled. Before he could slip away they explained how their one dollar had multiplied to $10 and asked if he would be willing to double the pot. No problem. Suddenly they had $20. Not bad. Not bad at all

Intrigued with the possibility of what had just transpired, they didn’t want to quit. Instead they came up with some rules for the game: 1) Each time they got a match it had to match the whole pot. More than one person can work together to make a match, but to count it must double the whole pot. 2) Each match request should be made directly through a personal contact. No mass email solicitations would be allowed. They wanted everyone involved to know the story and have a personal contact with someone who had already matched. That meant them! The eight boys and two leaders were to talk to friends and family and see where this would go. The fun had just begun!

Time up, scouts scattered, but the night was not over. Osterloh went home and realized he needed email addresses for the boys so he could keep in touch. The first two boys he reached led to matches - $40, then $80. A third parent, also a volunteer for Operation Smile was glad to take it to $160. By the next morning, the founder of Operation Smile had heard about it and emailed a match to $320. He liked the sound of what those boys were doing. By the time the boys got home from school that day the pot had gone from $320 to $640 to $1280 and was now at $2,560. They were amazed! By dinner, in less than 24 hours, 8 boys and 2 leaders had turned one single dollar into $10,240!

As Scarlett O’Hara would say, tomorrow is another day and they hope another dollar. You see this small troop of boys have just begun to see the possibility of one single dollar and the desire to do good. Thanks to Osterloh, their website onesingledollar.org is up and running on the power of hope and the growing realization that the sky is the limit. Stay tuned…we are sure there will be more to come.

Written by Nancy Nebeker