Jonathan Lawler is a successful farmer living in Indiana. He owns a large farm in a rural farming community outside Indianapolis, and each year, the farm sells about 700,000 pounds of food.
One day, Jonathan’s son returned home from school. When Jonathan asked him about his day, he was completely shocked to hear what his son had to say. “He came home from school and talked about kids who take home food from the food pantry,” Jonathan says. He was stunned to hear that his son’s classmates were ‘hungry’ and couldn’t eat enough food in a day.
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The area they lived in was full of farms and food, yet kids were still not eating enough in school. This notion troubled Jonathan, and it kept bothering him. He didn’t believe any child should feel hungry, so he came up with a solution. What he did left the entire town speechless.
Jonathan restructured his farm. Rather than being a for-profit farm, he transformed it into a food aid organization where it provides local food banks, soup kitchens, and “hungry” folks with food to eat. The idea is to use the farm to feed those in need rather than make a profit off the harvest. Jonathan is now encouraging other farmers to pitch in and donate a portion of their harvests to help others.
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Anders said that he began seeing pennies as a reminder to stop and say a prayer.
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“If I would see a penny when I’m gassing up, on the ground, or in a store, it would be a reminder to stop right there and say a prayer,” Anders said to ABC News. “I never failed to do that. That’s why they had so much value to me.”
At no point during all of his penny-collecting did Anders accept coins as a gift from anyone else.
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“But I never allowed anyone, not even my wife nor children, to give me pennies without being compensated,” he continued. “I wanted the inner satisfaction that God and I acquired this collection.”
“I became convinced that spotting a lost or dropped penny was an additional God-given incentive reminding me to always be thankful. There have been days where I failed to pray and more often than not, a lost or dropped penny would show up to remind me.”
Anders filled big water jugs with the coins he collected.
He said at one point his goal was to fill up 5 giant water jugs but once he had done that, he felt the urge to keep going.
He needed to go to the bank and turn them in or else he’d never do it.
At the time he finally went to the bank, he had filled 15 5-gallon jugs.
“I wanted to fill five five-gallon water jugs. That was the goal, but I couldn’t stop. … If I hadn’t turned them in yesterday, I was not going to stop.”
In addition to the intrinsic value Anders found in collecting the pennies, they also added up to have significant financial value.
After finding out his homeowner’s insurance policy wouldn’t cover his collection, he called the Origin Bank in Ruston, Louisiana, where he had been a customer for years.
Anders let them know he would be coming in with a large number of pennies.
They were happy to help but it was quite the undertaking.
“We value his business, as we do all of our customers,” said the bank’s Vice President Jennie Cole. “But if we can help Anders with his endeavors, we are happy to do so.”
