Where I Learned About Giving—Lina Barbieri
Lina Barbieri is the associate vice president of annual giving in the Office of Institutional Advancement.
Anyone who knows me knows how much I thrive on being able to do the work that I do here at DeSales. Sometimes folks from my home town in New Jersey, or a cousin of mine I haven’t seen in awhile, are horrified by my career choice. “Isn’t that scary, isn’t it hard asking people for money?” Well, sometimes scary, sometimes hard, but always joyful, fulfilling, and rewarding. If the COVID lockdown has done anything, it has reminded me of my love for this work, especially watching a community come together to support our students with emergency relief funding.
As it turns out, when I reflect on my life and my family, it was my late mom who taught me – not through words, but actions – about giving. I recall that we didn’t have much as a family in terms of financial security or material wealth. I remember vividly my mom’s secretarial steno book where she’d write every penny we spent as a family. She’d buy groceries on sale using coupons and deliberately record each item watching for spikes in price. She’d date when items were purchased so she would know how quickly as a family we were going through food, gasoline (those gas lines were long in the ‘70s), shoes, clothes, etc. The amount $.02 always pops in my memory because often that’s how much was left in the household until mom and dad got paid. And yet, every week, I also remember there being an entry for something special that we as a family funded. It was never a lot -$2, $5 or $10 to another family, to our church, to some kids collecting for the Jerry Lewis Telethon. My mom always did these things quietly – like she was almost hiding her generosity from the rest of us. I think my mom may have been embarrassed by the amount given when she should have been praised. I liken my mom to the widow in Mark’s telling of Jesus watching the crowds put their offerings in the temple treasury. The widow put in two small copper coins while others put in huge amounts from their excess funds. What did Jesus tell us, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
Of course, we did not live in poverty; we simply had to count every penny. Thankfully, my mom was a genius at money management, so we never felt poor. And, because my dad farmed land in northern Italy before coming to America, in the summer there was always a bountiful garden in our tiny backyard.
Until fairly recently, I hadn’t realized how much those moments of grace and generosity I witnessed as a child shaped who I am. They shaped my sister, too. She quietly funds a tiny orphanage in Guatemala – the same beautiful country where the hand of God touched our family by giving us my sister’s daughter, Maria, my niece and goddaughter.
So, as it turns out, partnering with others to raise money for DeSales students who might not otherwise get to go to college is a calling I am most inspired by, and maybe even a little genetically inclined to do. It’s work that, at its most fundamental core, is about a giver and a receiver, and possibly the life-changing impact those moments create. In light of the University’s core value of gratitude, my deep appreciation for my humble mom fuels my work into more of a ministry.
Lina Barbieri is the associate vice president of annual giving in the Office of Institutional Advancement.