Boy gives month's worth of money from paper route to shelter

Published: 2004-04-07

ROYAL OAK, Mich. (CNS) -- Without telling anybody but his parents, 9-year-old Jake Luddy saved a whole month's worth of earnings from his weekly paper route and gave it to his parish's shelter program for the homeless. "I wanted to help people, so that made (giving the money) a lot easier since they're living in a shelter," said Jake, a fourth-grader at Shrine Elementary, a Catholic school in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak. "I kind of have enough stuff and I didn't need to buy anything," he told The Michigan Catholic, newspaper of the Detroit Archdiocese. "It wasn't hard at all." So, one day after school, Jake dropped off $84 at the rectory of the National Shrine of the Little Flower Parish. Word of Jake's good deed spread. His teachers and friends thought what he did was a great idea. His mother, Faith Luddy, said Jake had planned on giving money to the poor during Lent. "We are very proud of him. We teach them (their children) that what they earn, they give to the church," she said, speaking for herself and husband Peter.

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