The Story of the Origami Shirt

So, I was in the awesome state of Maine a few weeks ago with 7 mortgage girlfriends.

One morning, Kelly McGuinness and I decided to eat breakfast at a little beach restaurant (the Lobster Benedict is to die for).  There was only one other person having breakfast that morning.  As he was leaving the joint, he handed us this origami shirt.

Along with the shirt, there was this poem:

Take this little dollar shirt
And keep it with you always,
No matter what you do.
Even if you seem down
When it comes to luck,
Smile cause you still have
One friendly little buck.
And let it be a reminder of
One important fact,
I would gladly give you the
Shirt right off my back.

We were kinda surprised that the “shirt” was a real dollar bill.  So, Kelly asked if he handed out dollar bills to everyone (because this practice could really get expensive).  He said “I’ve been pretty successful in my life, I have a little money, and now want to give something of value back to everyone I meet.”

While he did not stick around long enough for us to learn his story, we were moved by his “pay it forward” attitude and desire to make people happy.

If you think about it, that’s what you do, day in and day out – give people money.  To buy a home. To refinance away their debts. To raise their family. To create memories.  Giving them the shirt off your back to get them approved.

So, here’s Ruth Vogt’s (another mortgage girlfriend) marketing idea:   Find a person in your area who does origami (or here’s a video if you’d like to do it yourself), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpBYuB0OsQ0, copy the poem and hand out to clients and real estate agents!

What do you think of the idea?