Resources

June 2022 "Good"

To be a follower of Jesus means to be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the good of all. It means to be willing to
deny ourselves for the benefit of all of humanity.

I recently read about a man named Thomas Cannon who did this in a truly remarkable way. He was a postal
worker in Richmond, Virginia, who lived much of his life on the edge of poverty so that he could give to those
in need. Describing himself as “a poor man’s philanthropist,” he gave away more than $150,000 to people who
were experiencing hard times, or who had been unusually kind or brave. He gave these gifts over the last 33
years of his life, mostly in the form of $1,000 checks.

He traced his inspiration to his time in the Navy. While he was away at signal school, there was a shipboard
explosion at the Port of Chicago and may of his shipmates were killed. He concluded that he was spared for a
reason — to help others, to be a role model, to inspire people to see what he called “the oneness of it all.”
Cannon gave to people of all ages, races, nationalities, and incomes. He gave to a low-income woman who
started a youth center in her apartment complex . . . to a retired postal worker who was a regular volunteer at an
elementary school . . . to a woman and a man who wanted to return to Vietnam to visit their hometown . . . to an
advocate for the victims of crime . . . and to a teenager who had been abandoned as an infant but grew up to be
named Virginia’s Youth of the Year.

This generosity didn’t come without sacrifice. Cannon supported his wife, his two sons, and himself and his
charitable efforts on a salary that never exceeded $20,000 a year. When he retired from the postal service in
1983, he and his wife lived near the poverty line on his pension. “We lived simply,” he said before his death in
2005, “so we could give money away.”

He wasn’t unhappy about these sacrifices. In fact, he had a great sense of humor, one that he kept even after
being diagnosed with terminal cancer. As his health was failing, he told the Richmond newspaper, “A Baptist
deacon who owed me $200 died recently. First thing I’m going to do when I get to the other side is run him
down.”

Thomas Cannon didn’t want a foundation to be set up to continue his work after his death. He feared that a
foundation would require a bureaucracy, and tons of paperwork. He didn’t even what his name attached to
anything. He just left one simple request: “Help somebody.”

Rev. Jason Mahnke, Wisconsin United Methodist Foundation