I think the best I ever felt about "doing benevolence" was in a small West Texas town. The churches in this hamlet wanted to help people. They knew the local poor folks but they were wary of the ones just passing through. So the congregations agreed to funnel all help requests through one door. They chose to offer folks who needed help an opportunity to work on the town square. The worker (or workers) would be paid an hourly wage for the yard work they did on the town square. The City secretary took care of the tools and monitored the time worked. The workers received cash. The most wonderful thing to me was the opportunity it provided for self-respect. These people hadn't "gotten a handout." They earned that money.
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