By Holly Kozelsky
Dear anonymous donor,
Thank you for enriching my life. Your generosity has made things better for me in many ways.
Thank you, anonymous donor, for the fun, companionship, unwavering love, protection and loyalty my dear dog has brought me for the past 12 years. She is a right proper member of the family and takes her role of taking care of my daughter and me seriously, just as we take taking care of her seriously.
She came to us from the Patrick County Animal Shelter after our previous dog had died. I was a flat broke, struggling single mother at the time. I would have paid the hundreds of dollars it takes to get a dog adopted, spayed, vaccinated and so forth, but you sure made things easier for me by paying all those fees yourself, leaving my part to be just $10.
We assume you support the Patrick County Animal Shelter to help the animals. Did you also take into account how you are enriching the lives of the people who take them home? Your generosity helps us all.
Thank you, anonymous donor, for the beauty and cheer of a Christmas tree in uptown Martinsville. Did you know that by donating that tree to the MHC Chamber you would be continuing a tradition that started in 1916 and has brought joy and togetherness to the community for the better part of a century?
Your lovely, stately Christmas tree stands proudly in the center of uptown Martinsville, bringing cheer to those who see it. In fact, your tree actually brings people to uptown Martinsville to look at it. I’m the director of the MHC Heritage Museum, which the tree was placed in front of, and it’s been neat to look out the window (or at the screen of the security cameras) watching how many people come to see the tree close up, and to take pictures.
Thank you, anonymous donor, for leaving a bag of fresh tomatoes on my porch this summer. Did you know I had planted some tomato plants and then got so busy and overwhelmed over the summer that I didn’t tend my garden and it did not succeed?
Thank you, anonymous donors, 12 years ago, when my daughter and I moved into our house in the country; the huge yard was overgrown and unkempt and too much to tackle. A short while after we moved in, men from the community whom we hadn’t met yet came over with their bushhogs and tractors and other equipment and cleared the way for us to be able to take care of it with our lawn mower and standard gardening tools.
Thank you, anonymous donor who was in line ahead of me at the coffee shop and paid for my order.
Thank you, anonymous donor, for the hot coffee I like to drink while sitting at the Martinsville Branch Library. That coffee comes from the library’s A Quiet Cup With Friends Coffee Bar, which was provided by some donors named and others anonymous.
Those are just some of the unnamed individuals whose compassion and generosity have made things better for me, just as I bet many aspects of your life have been made a little more special by them as well.
Early into the pandemic, when everyone was scared and protections were hard to get, an anonymous donor provided local postal workers with 114 masks and 18 face shields. Another gave 300 masks for the guests at the MHC Warming Center.
Anonymous donors have helped the SPCA time and time again – including a $50,000 match to donations on Giving Tuesday a few years ago.
Anonymous donors have helped MLC Cancer Foundation, including one who gave money to help people with cancer who have connections to the furniture industry.
In 2022 an anonymous donor provided $1,000 Christmas bonuses to each of five Patrick County workers; the recipients’ names were randomly chosen in a drawing.
An anonymous donor gave $100,000 toward the Southern Virginia Child Advocacy Center’s “Burn the Mortgage” campaign in 2022. What more important role can a group have than to stand up for children in their most vulnerable times of life?
And we’ve all seen in GoFundMe and other benefits, online and off, how anonymous donors chip in to help people through tough times including catastrophic medical bills or unexpected funerals.
So thank you, anonymous donor, for one more gift that you give me: the magic and possibility of not knowing who you are, because that means you could be anyone. By being no one you are everyone: You give the gift of a positive outlook on humanity.
