Word on the street in Las Vegas was told me that after the 1980 fire in the MGM Grand, which was quite the local disaster, the local residents brought in blankets and other aid, and some offered their houses to hold the displaced MGM people.
I also was told by someone who not a Mormon themselves I think but was related to them, and they told me that the Mormon charities were giving out supplies like blankets themselves, but that, this is the kicker, they had to hand out ones without their “Latter-Day Saints” label, or else people would refuse it.
I find this hard to believe that people would be noticing it, but as all modern fables, a tiny grain of truth behind the concept of it makes it easier to believe that it should be. Can anyone comment on this myth?
There are a LOT of Mormons who live in the Vegas area, and I would imagine that they would be some of the first people to offer up aid to those in need—It’s pretty common for the local wards to offer the use of their chapels (or sometimes of private members homes) when people are displaced due to disaster…
It wasn’t as if thousands of people were suddenly left homeless and in desperate and immediate need for blankets, food, shelter, and such, like after a flood or hurricane; it just put some people out of a job for a while. Some just collected unemployment, some took jobs doing the clean up and reconstruction, and most found other jobs, either temporary or permanent.
I suspect the person who told you the Mormon story had some sort of agenda.
LDS charity projects don’t generally come with big labels on them. I’ve never seen a blanket that were labeled with the name of the church. It’s not terribly uncommon for volunteers to wear yellow t-shirts or something, but they don’t always do that. Half the time an LDS volunteer team consists of people calling each other and getting together to move sandbags or whatever.
My Mother has been involved for about 10 years with a quilting group at her catholic church. They have made & given away over 3,000 quilts. Each of them has a small label in it giving the name of the church. They have only had 1 person refuse to take a quilt because of that – a born-again Baptist – they told her to take the quilt for her kids, cut out the label, then throw it away, burn it, bury it in a cemetery at midnight, whatever she wanted.
My local political party has often donated leftover campaign t-shirts (usually from a losing candidate) to the local Red Cross to give to victims of house fires or similar disasters. Victims of such never seem to mind, no matter what political party they support. And the Red Cross has no problem accepting such political items to give away.
I was in the Caribbean (St Martin) when the Haitian earthquake happened. Most of the locals I talked with said that although aid would be offered from all over the world, the Haitian government would never accept a penny. Of course, they did. Was there any talk in the rest of the world along these lines?
That’s interesting. Where do they get the labels made? Is it like a little woven tag? I need to get some of those made…
LDS-made quilts don’t come with labels (we’re not that professional!). They use donated fabric, people put them together, then the person in charge sets up a quilting frame and whoever wants to can work on it. They always use the international stitch, but otherwise anything goes.
