I think it might be fitting to call it the Gus Fund.

“You will never understand what your acts of good mean to so many of us,” wrote Helen Carr of Connecticut, she sent a donation in Gus’s name of $100 to my refugee work and the work with the Mansion residents. David James of Minnesota send $10 in single dollar bills.

Those bills have been around, I have to glue one of them together. Thank you, Helen an James.

I suppose Helen is right, I can’t really know how people outside are reacting to what I do here,  I work in my own narrow sphere as many people do, and at my predictably frantic pace. It is good to look up once in a while.

And I think you, Helen, and the many other good people out there helping me in this work can never understand how much good your donations in Gus’s name will do to the refugee children and adults and the people in the Mansion living on the edge of life.

Because of your donations, many of them $5 and $10 and $20, often in crumpled, neatly packaged dollars, the Mansion residents will get soap, notecards, outings, clothes, and some good meals at good restaurants. The refugee families will get groceries, clothing, support for the classes they need to take, supplies for their school.

So far, I’ve received more than $1,000 in mostly small donations (there have been larger ones as well, thanks).

I thought this would be a good way to honor Gus and heal from  his loss and turn his struggle directly into good. I had no idea the response would be so swift and strong.

All of these donations will go straight into what I call the Refugee/Mansion Fund but am now considering calling the “Gus Fund,” because he touched so many people – I couldn’t really understand this at first, either. And what a wonderful way to remember him. I will smile at his memory every time I commit a small act of great kindness.

These donations will enable me to fill in the holes in people’s lives, to support the refugee children in their very difficult journey into American life. We work on a small-scale, doing small things of meaning. Small donations are fitting, they will take us a long way.

And there is something else I didn’t understand, says Jeanine from California.

“I work as a cashier at a Burger Den window,” Deanne wrote, “my boyfriend was killed in Iraq, and I have two kids, we never married, so there are no benefits for me.  People like me don’t have extra cash, we don’t often get the chance to do good. I love your Army of Good, and i loved that little dog. You are giving me a way to do good and also see the people I am helping. I bet you didn’t quite know that.”

Well, Deanne, I saw the small denominations in the envelopes, but I didn’t quite put all of that together either. You can be loud and still be oblivious.

I love those small donations, they mean a lot, I know that even those are a sacrifice to many people, working mothers, people on fixed incomes, the elderly on Social Security.

One of the ideas behind the Army Of Good was to cast a wide net, and get small donations from large numbers of people so the sting is spread out and shared. The small donations are wonderful, but the big donations are important too, they often carry the work over the top, and the two kinds of donations together have been wonderful and successful and effective.

We have helped so many people, and what beautiful thing it is for Gus’s death to translate this way directly into doing good rather than arguing about what good is.

We have skipped right over the eternal argument that is paralyzing our country, we are above it.

We get to feel good, they get to be mad.

We know what good is when we see it, and we are doing it every day, from the RISSE Wish List to the support for the RISSE soccer team and the Girl’s basketball team and the children Ali and I are trying to help.

I can’t tell you what it means to me to go to the Post Office in the morning and see those envelopes piled up in honor of Gus and in support of my work. Helen, thanks for reminding me what this means, to me, and to others.

So I hope we can keep this new tradition going. There are many needy people out there.

I’m going to the bank today and changing the name of the Mansion/Refugee Fund to the “Gus Fund,”  a fund for doing good. Your small donations break my heart and lift it up at the same time. Your bigger ones will also help these people all through the summer.

I am grateful for them all, and will honor them and put them to good use.

I’m a lucky person to be able to do this, and honored to be able to do it with such good and generous people. Grandma Moses was right, life is what you make of it.

So thank you to those who have donated to our work int the name of Gus. For those new to this idea, or who might wish to donate, you can do so by writing to the Gus Fund, c/o, Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or to me via Paypal, [email protected].

Some of you may not be aware that this is healing me, and Maria, but I hope it is healing you as well.