I attended a fundraising luncheon at a fancy country club to benefit our regional symphony. These things typically have Silent Auctions, which I rarely bid on, because I give via a Donor Advised Fund, and it gets complicated if you receive anything of monetary value. I usually do the Fund-A-Need type giving. They were asking for money for a program that teaches kids to play the strings at a school where the kids are very low income and English is not their primary language. There were about ten little kids. There was an older sister/younger sister combo there with their mom. The mom got up and spoke about how much it had helped her oldest and how happy the (much) younger one was to join the same group. The mom was extremely nervous, but did a great job. After that, the kids played "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". Then they played it again, asking everyone to sing along, which was done very enthusiastically and was hilarious. I was gobsmacked at how much behind the scenes work it had taken to get these kids to this place just so they could play TTLS twice. When the paddle-raising started, I gave $1500 to the program. For context, my niece plays the viola and graduated from a fancy conservatory college program. Her parents have provided everything for her, including international travel and study. The disparity was not lost on me, hence the size of the gift.
Still more fun was that I have a 91-year-old friend who just moved into this same gated community. She downsized from her fabulous mountaintop home when her husband passed away last year. I hadn't seen her since his memorial, so it was nice to be able to visit her in her new home after the luncheon. We became friends when she agreed to host a library fundraiser for me at her home. I knew her slightly from an Arts group and I needed a place to host said event. She willingly agreed and a lovely friendship was born. Oh, and they designed and built the fabulous estate home themselves, on a shoestring. Turns out, they were mustachians before Pete's parents were born.