Humankind or Hockey?

While I've written before about my frustration with living in shades of gray, this issue is crystal clear to me:

Humanity has greater needs than hockey. 

Last Friday, a Penn State donor gave the university its largest private gift ever, $88 million to fund the construction of a campus ice hockey arena and the creation of an NCAA Division 1 ice hockey program for men and women. Part of the money will endow a total of 36 scholarships for players. 

The small, realistic, capitalistic part of me says, "It's his money. He earned it. He can spend it however he likes." But the Christian and more human side of me asks, "Can you imagine the lives that could be changed with $88 million?" 

I did some research to figure out exactly what kind of life changing stuff could be done with $88 million. This is just a small sampling of those things that particularly touch my heart:

• Plant trees, develop sustainable agriculture, teach the poor to help themselves.With program expenditures of just over $2 million, my friends at Plant With Purpose plant trees in villages of some the poorest countries of the world (nearly 700,000 trees last year). Planting trees restores productivity to barren, depleted land, and then the organization teaches the poor in these communities innovative agro-forestry techniques they can use to make a sustainable, living wage. From there, micro-credit loans and business training help the poor find other income sources and reduce their dependence on agriculture altogether. For a complete list of Plant With Purpose's accomplishments with a mere $2 million, check out their annual report and then do the math to figure out what would be possible with an $88 million budget windfall.
• Bring water, bring health and hope. 3.5 million people die each year from water-related disease. My friend Dave Powell digs wells in Africa where water is incomprehensibly scarce. Dave is in Ghana as I write, so I couldn't get his actual dollar figures, but another site shared these numbers: the average cost for a hand pump bore well benefiting a village is $1,500. For larger scale projects where water is supplied to an entire school or orphanage, cost ranges from $2,500 to $10,000 depending upon the size and scope of the work. For $88 million, Dave could drill more than 5,800 village wells, helping untold numbers of people.
• The gift of a smile. There are millions of children with un-repaired cleft lips and palates who have little to no prospect of ever being helped. Their parents are so poor, they could never afford surgery. What does it cost to give the child the gift of a smile? According to The Smile Train, the world's largest cleft charity, $250 is all it takes. For $88 million, 352,000 children could have this surgery.   
• Feeding hungry children. In America, one of the richest nations in the world, the number of people in poverty today is the highest it's been in the 51 years for which poverty figures are available. The rate of children younger than 18 living in poverty increased from 19.0 percent to 20.7 percent - a jump of 1.4 million to a total of 15.5 million children. Children have no control over their economic state. They don't ask to be born into situations where there isn't enough food to fill their bellies. $88 million could provide 4.4 million pounds of healthy food through Feed the Children.
   
  This generous Penn State donor claims that he gives to other charities, though he wouldn't specify them for the newspaper article he was interviewed in. When asked "Why hockey? Why not something else?", he replied:

  "Because I wanted to. But this isn't the end of my giving. We'll be doing other things, give to the university or whatever. You can't do everything at once."

While I congratulate Penn State on its exciting gift and the opportunities it will provide for the university, I do wish something could be awakened in this man's heart so he might see the tremendous need all around him. Perhaps he would pledge something for humanity...instead of hockey.