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The Story:
The dingy 47th Street alley was home. She didn’t have a house or a car or even a refrigerator, but she had a roof and three walls that formed a cozy nook.
Last year someone had tried to “help” her by putting her in temporary housing, but they didn’t understand. She was content. Summers could be sweltering, leaving her drained. Winters could be deadly. But she was content.
Everyone has dreams, of course. But she didn’t dream of a house. She dreamed of the daughter she lost to cancer. She didn’t dream of a bed. She dreamed of the lover she lost to another woman.
“Homeless. HELP. God bless,” read the words of the cardboard sign she held up for the commuters to see every day. Most of them assumed she wanted money for beer or cigarettes or drugs. Some of them glared at her, thinking she was just too lazy to work. Occasionally, someone would lament his or her wealthy ways long enough to hand her a five or a ten.
Every day, after she had collected whatever people were willing to give, she would proceed to the nearest store where she would buy some food for the day. Then, she would walk to the children’s hospital on 38th Street and make a cash donation of the amount she collected, plus the same amount again in a check. After visiting with children in commons areas, she would walk back to her nook.
It was a receptionist who figured it all out.
Minnie Hughes was worth an average savings account. She was so affected by the death of her daughter that she chose to live homeless to afford to give her money away every day.
She bought food with her own money. She matched what motorists gave her with her own money. Her work was giving to the children at the hospital.
Living this way, she managed to give the hospital over $100,000 in 8 years.
When Minnie died, the receptionist told the world Minnie’s story. The hospital gave her a heroine’s funeral and began the Minnie Hughes Foundation for children with cancer.
And every year on the anniversary of Minnie’s death, children around the world would stand on a street corner and donate everything they received to a children’s hospital.