Sometimes, if we choose to listen, children can teach us the most important lessons in life on how to treat one another.
Recently, a 7-year-old little boy named Jack heard about an act of vandalism on the sidewalk in front of a Texas mosque in what is now being referred to as a hate crime. Jack immediately knew what he had to do. The little boy went to his mother and told her he wanted to give the mosque the money he had been saving in his piggy bank.
“We got together our pennies and it came out to $20 bucks, so we did what we could,” Jack’s mother, Laura Swanson, told ABC News affiliate KVUE . “It doesn’t matter what you believe or I believe or he believes or anybody believes. All faith is important. And especially peaceful faith I mean what happened in Paris is not what’s happening in Pflugerville. We should all be here supporting each other.”
Boy donates all of the money in his piggy bank to mosque vandalised in Texas https://t.co/F9EiMEwNlt pic.twitter.com/v6Reuxd0DX
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) November 19, 2015
The vandalism at The Islamic Center of Pflugerville was found early morning by a congregant who had arrived early for morning prayers. Police arrived at the mosque just after 6:00 a.m. on Monday, November 16. When they got there, they found pages of the Quran torn in front of the building with feces smeared on them. The vandalism to the mosque comes after the November 13 attacks on Paris. While it is not currently known if the vandalism had any connection to the attacks, Board member Faisal Naeem said they have never had anything like this happen there before.
ISIS took responsibility for the terrorist attacks that took place in Paris, France on Friday, November 13. The attacks left 129 people dead and injured more than 300 others. Following the massacre, France immediately closed its borders and declared a state of emergency. In the following days, France unleashed a series of attacks on the city of Raqqa in Syria, where ISIS located its so-called capital. Twenty-four bombs were dropped, and 30 explosions occurred on Sunday night and Monday morning, according to CNN . Also on Sunday, 12 aircraft dropped 20 bombs on ISIS positions in Raqqa, destroying all of their targets.
“A few individuals who did what they did, they don’t represent 1.6 billion Muslims. They don’t represent me for sure and the Austin Muslim community,” he said. “It’s become so commonplace where something goes wrong somewhere and people want to blame all Muslims,” he continued. “If anything, it’s a pointing indictment of the logical fallacy in our society’s way of thinking.”
Boy empties his piggy bank to help a mosque that was vandalised https://t.co/0cYywYU94L #JackSwanson Good Lad!!
— Tadpole No 3 (@tadpoleno3) November 19, 2015
On Monday night, flowers replaced the torn, feces covered pages as people gathered to wash the sidewalk clean. While there was no physical damage to the mosque, Naeem estimated the cleanup cost to be around $150. Members of the community started pouring in donations for the mosque, including Jack, who dug out all of his pennies out of his piggy bank to help out.
“This gives me hope because this means that it’s not you know one versus the other because two years, 10 years, 50 years — I’ll be gone. But my kids and Jack, both Americans, born here are going to grow up together,” said Naeem.
“It’s $20 bucks but coming from Jack collecting his pennies, it’s worth 20 million bucks to me and to our community,” Naeem added.
This is Jack Swanson, 7. He emptied out his piggy bank to help repair a vandalized mosque https://t.co/t4mmABp2p8 pic.twitter.com/KfJEb7MXhP
— Muhammad Lila (@MuhammadLila) November 19, 2015
What do you think about Jack Swanson’s generous donation? Leave your comments below.
[Photo via Shutterstock]
