Santa Claus or Ebenezer Scrooge? My experiment in guerilla altruism this year.

Bob Brody
·4 min read

The spirit of giving was never really what you would call my strong suit. I was always more of a taker. My agenda could be readily summed up as a matter of what’s in it for me. But that recently changed.

Over the past year or so, I prepared to move from the United States to Italy, which I finally did in July. My family had accumulated a lifetime of belongings in our three-bedroom New York apartment. Everything would have to go, or at least go somewhere else. Some stuff, such as family memorabilia, we would ship over or pack for my flight. Other possessions would be thrown out. But what to do with everything else?

I considered putting most of our furniture on the open market. I could stage an open house, advertise on Craigslist, bring in an estate appraiser or even farm out the job to a friend with a flair for salesmanship who could keep half the proceeds.

Embracing the spirit of giving

But no. A pandemic was underway and, when feasible, I was avoiding contact with people, especially strangers. Besides, it might be more bother than it was worth. Photographing everything, playing host to prospective customers and negotiating prices with interested parties would take too much energy. Plus, the nickel-and-diming sure to ensue was unlikely to make me a billionaire any time soon.

Rather, I would give it all away, or at least try. Better still, I would donate our secondhand acquisitions to people I cared about or at least knew – family, friends, acquaintances, neighbors.

Some stuff, such as family memorabilia, we would ship over or pack for my flight. Other possessions would be thrown out. But what to do with everything else?
Some stuff, such as family memorabilia, we would ship over or pack for my flight. Other possessions would be thrown out. But what to do with everything else?

So began my giveaway spree. The butcher block table in our kitchen went to my longtime friend Al; my Ikea recliner and ottoman to my basketball buddy Aaron; a flat-screen TV and DVD player to a doorman of ours; video games and consoles to a fitness trainer who ran a gym for teenagers in Bedford-Stuyvesant; hundreds of superhero action figures and comic books my son had saved to porters with kids; and soccer balls and tennis racquets to teenagers in the playground around the corner.

The high-quality sewing machine my wife owned for decades needed a home, too. It was important to me to give it to someone who would really appreciate it. My beloved mother-in-law had toiled at a sewing machine in a factory for 47 years. I gave it to a seamstress I came to know at the dry cleaner across the street. In her gratitude – and surprise – she bowed, looking as if she might be blinking back tears, and placed her hand over her heart.

Bob Brody's family sewing machine.
Bob Brody's family sewing machine.

Most of our furniture – a china cabinet, dressers, a sofa, night tables, a wall unit, bookshelves and a recliner – we donated to Habitat for Humanity. We had a dining room table from the 1930s that I inherited from my grandmother. Three generations of our family had celebrated holidays around that table for decades. We debated shipping it to our new home, but it would have cost too much, and that, too, the nonprofit organization picked up.

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Three generations of our family had celebrated holidays around that table for decades
Three generations of our family had celebrated holidays around that table for decades

For a short while, then, I felt vaguely like Santa Claus – or, more plausibly, like legendary skinflint Ebenezer Scrooge from the Dickens classic “A Christmas Carol,” who belatedly discovers that charity can be exhilarating. Call it the faintest of flirtations with philanthropy. So this is how it is, I fancied, albeit on a more modest scale, to be the second coming of Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Bloomberg or Buffett.

Maybe all this better-to-give-than-to receive jazz was true after all. Maybe I should have gotten drunk on guerilla altruism before pushing 70.

Divvying up our property to distribute was harder than I expected.
Divvying up our property to distribute was harder than I expected.

Thoughtfulness, intentional giving

Mind you, divvying up our property to distribute was harder than I expected. You have to earmark your inventory, match goods with recipients, pitch the opportunities available, schedule pickup appointments – in effect put a supply chain in place. Doling out freebies can be logistically challenging. More than a few people expressed interest, picked times to come by for a look, but never showed up.

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Being new to any version of largesse, I could have done a better job. I jettisoned a lot of potentially useful items – a microwave, a step ladder, tools, hairbrushes – as too minor to worry about. Pandemic protocols prevented me from contributing clothing to a nearby thrift shop and books to our local library. And no sense kidding myself about my candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize here: Getting people to accept our hand-me-downs was a matter of convenience, as much a service to me as to others.

Bob Brody in New York City in July 2015.
Bob Brody in New York City in July 2015.

I’ll never get to do anything like that again. But maybe now giving rather than taking, whether during holidays or year-round, will finally become a habit.

Bob Brody, a consultant and essayist in Italy, is author of the memoir “Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age.”

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Santa Claus or Ebenezer Scrooge? My experiment in altruism this year