Generosity, Super-Sized

So here we are reading the newspaper to educate ourselves, to cheer our favorite politician, boo the other guys and postpone desk duty with holiday bills and income tax directions resembling English. You know the monthly routine, divvy the pay among the obligations -- the mortgage, electricity, exterminator, priceless Visa card, the math tutor, auto and house insurance, plus repairs on the car, the roof, your teeth, and maybe, if there’s money left, some food. Somehow the sum of monthly obligations always exceeds the paycheck. Can we blame that too on El Nino or the federal government?

And over there, according to a front-page Times story the other day, are the desk-bound executors of Joan B. Kroc’s estate doling out a few million here, a few there and many millions over there. Mrs. Kroc, widow of Ray, founder of the McDonald’s hamburger chain, died of brain cancer last October.

Since then, it’s now been revealed, the daughter of a Minneapolis railroad worker has super-sized the notion of philanthropy to become one of the nation’s all-time donors. She gave $1 million to San Diego’s Children’s Hospital, $5 million for a new Chula Vista school, $10 million to San Diego’s Opera, $20 million to the San Diego Hospice, $50 million to a peace institute at the University of San Diego, $50 million for additional peace at the University of Notre Dame, which wasn’t at war, and $200 million to National Public Radio. Anything to end those on-air fundraisers every other week.

Now word that Mrs. Kroc has given $1.5 billion to the Salvation Army for 30 massive community centers across the country. That’s one-and-a-half-billion dollars, as in billions of burgers sold. That’s more money even than annoying lottery winners get in those poster-sized checks. Were we really paying that much more than those cheap McD burgers actually cost?

One-thousand-five-hundred-million dollars. Checkbooks can’t hold that many zeroes. It’s hard to picture 1.5 billion anythings, let alone imagine it as money. And then giving it away. Enough to buy a mountain range of Happy Meals, hold the cynicism. One-point-five billion is one dollar for every human in China plus about seven Canadas and one Chicago. Laid end to end, 1.5 billion dollar bills would wrap around the Earth five times, with 17,000 miles of money left over. Except some bills might be gone by the time you came back around the equator.

There’s nothing Mc about that Jupiter-sized generosity. Mrs. Kroc and her savvy husband may also be remembered as the Salvation Army’s salvation, the 21st century Andrew and Andrea Carnegies of community centers. Ray Kroc began as a salesman in California. of milkshake makers. His arching vision created a national fast-food industry. Now, in death, the kindly Krocs have reconfigured the scale of charitable giving. Thank you for coming. Next in line, please?