By NICOLE PELLETIERE and MICHELLE MANZIONE
North Carolina Church Receives Heartwarming Note With 18-Cent Donation (ABC News)
Sunday's service was business as usual for First United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
But it was one offering that warmed the hearts of everyone at the congregation, and it wasn't the amount of money that moved them.
"After the service we have a couple of people called counters who process the offerings and put them in our safe," Pastor Patrick Hamrick told ABC News. "The secretary called me over and in the envelope was a dime, a nickel, and three cents. That was the 18 cents. We flipped it over and the note was there."
The note, written by an anonymous donor, said:
"Please don't be mad. I don't have much. I'm homeless. God Bless."
"We were very touched by it," Hamrick said. "I just had a phone call from the person who says that he's the one.”
Barry Collins, a long-time church member and office volunteer, believes the man had eaten breakfast with the church Sunday morning and left the note behind afterwards.
“Every Sunday morning, we serve breakfast to our homeless neighbors,” Collins told ABC News of what is known as the “Muffin Ministry.”
Hamrick, who posted the note on the church Facebook page, told the mystery man that the community could rally together for him should he reveal his identity, but the man chose to remain unnamed.
"He's asked me to keep it between me, God, and the church," Hamrick said. "He's not upset about it, he just feels that he wants to be private. I have to honor it professionally.
"It warmed our hearts because proportionally that gift could be an average middle class person giving a 1,000 dollars," he added. "I feel like he gave everything he had that morning and it's a touching example of someone” who has so little to give.
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