‘The best birthday I’ve ever had’

Pullman’s Karen Kiessling could have thrown herself a pity party.

The COVID-19 pandemic meant the former Pullman mayor could not celebrate her 80th birthday the way she wanted with friends, music and dancing.

“I really thought, ‘How sad is this?’ ” she said. “I’m going to sit at home and be safe and turn 80, sniffle sniffle.”

She came up with another way to make her Wednesday birthday memorable. She sent 10 of her friends $80 in cash with just one rule: They had to let her know how they spent the money.

They could spend the money on whatever they wanted, and the results brought tears to Kiessling’s eyes.

“What they did with it was just astonishing,” she said.

Nearly every woman who received cash used it to help others, and they wrote letters back to Kiessling telling their story.

The women gave to nonprofits such as the Whitman County Humane Society, the Community Action Center and Family Promise of the Palouse. One gave to Blessing Beds, a local organization that builds beds for children in need.

One woman used it to help fund a weekend getaway to the Oregon Coast with her granddaughters to celebrate the life of her late daughter, who died at age 39. Another gave it to her neighbor to help her install a gas stove in her house. One woman even gave $20 to a needy man she met at Winco in Moscow.

The philanthropy and selfless giving did not surprise Kiessling. She said her friends’ actions are “Pullman personified.”

“I think this is very much, for me, a picture of what the Palouse is like,” she said.

What astonished her is that every woman came up with a different way to help others using the money. Kiessling was also surprised at how much joy it brought her to read about these stories.

“It’s probably the best birthday I’ve ever had,” an emotional Kiessling said.

Kiessling is open to the idea of doing this again in the future, and she encouraged others to try it with their friends.

“It’s simple but it worked so well in a time when everybody’s so alone and there are so many things that people need and so much hurt because they’re so isolated,” she said.

Sheila O’Rourke was one of Kiessling’s friends who received cash.

“I thought it was brilliant,” O’Rourke said.

O’Rourke said she donated some of her cash to the Himalayan Cataract Project, which removes cataracts from blind people. She donated money to the Noel House Programs in Seattle, which is a homeless shelter for women. She also paid for pizzas to be delivered to the staff of the Avalon Care Center in Pullman.

O’Rourke was not surprised by her friends’ charitable giving and called it “a reflection of Pullman.”

O’Rourke said it was an easy decision to donate the money to others instead of spending it on herself. She said the other women likely felt the same.

“What in the name of God do we want for ourselves?” she said.

With all the ugliness and negativity in the world, Kiessling said she hopes that other people use their energy to do something positive for others.

“I want to say, get busy and do something good,” she said. “Stop whining, stop hating everything, stop deciding that people are against you, and get up out of your chair and do something.”

Anthony Kuipers can be reached at akuipers@dnews.com.