Chicago pastor gives away $500 to members of her congregation to 'do good'

If you go to church, you're probably used to giving back -- in the form perhaps of a collection plate circulating after the service. Recently, however, a Chicago church switched things up. After coming into a large chunk of cash from a real estate deal, the pastor of LaSalle Street Chruch decided to give away part of the proceeds to their regular parishioners.

"They were so surprised, they just sat there," Pastor Laura Truax tells As It Happens host Carol Off about the moment she revealed the giveaway. "As a communicator, I started to sweat a bit. I just said it again and I think the second time they heard it, it kinda started to sink in.

"Several people started to cry, and people started to whisper to their neighbour, and then it became quiet for a moment -- one of those moments that you think, wow, this just happened, we're all doing this together."

Truax says she gave away cheques of $500 to all 320 members of her congregation in September, which represented about 10 per cent of their real estate sale proceeds.

"There were no conditions, really," she says, other than inviting her congregation to do good deeds with the money.

"We have folks who have given to animal rescue shelters," she says. "We have a number of folks who gave to things around the world -- many of them gave to Ebola clinics and other medical-related things."

Two of her parishioners pooled their money together to buy dozens of winter coats for financially disadvantaged students at a public high school.

Another formerly homeless man, who lives at a YMCA, decided not to keep the money, but instead found his still-homeless friends and treated them to a restaurant dinner and a movie.

"Again and again, I've heard how empowering it feels [to do good deeds]," she says. "The possibilities for opening our lives to live generously with others is just exponential, I think."