There's a toy shop in the United Kingdom that takes extra money from customers, beyond the price of their purchases.
And the customers thank the store.
MinistryWatch reported Gary and Cath Grant, purchased a toy shop called The Entertainer in Amersham, northwest of London, in 1981.
They say it was their commitment to Jesus Christ that prompted them to build into their operating expenses regular donations to charity. And they match the donations of employees to a charity of their choice.
It's their Pennies program that invites customers to round up the total of their purchases to the nearest pound as a donation to to a local children's hospital.
After five years, it has raised some $1.6 million.
"The most amazing thing is customers in the shop compliment us for doing it, and yet we're taking their money off them!" Gary Grant said.
After 35 years, they now have 120 stores and several franchises.
Neither was a Christian when they bought their first shop. Gary had grown up in a family with almost no money, his parents divorced when he was 3 and he had dyslexia, so his goal was making money.
During their first few years, as the couple acquired a second store, Cath committed her life to Jesus Christ.
Gary said that for about three years, he was an "antagonistic, non-Christian husband."
The change began when Cath bought Gary a ticket for a men's breakfast at her church.
"My prayer for Gary was that he would find the Lord, but never in a million years did I believe he actually would," Cath said.
After the men's meeting, he started reading the Bible, and she saw other changes.
"Overnight we changed our thoughts on what we should stock in the shop, the kind of hours our staff should work, whether we allowed bad language in the warehouse," Cath said.
"I'm accountable to God, not shareholders," Gary said.
The couple also gives back to children through their founding of Restore Hope Latimer, a charity that ministers to at-risk youth.
"He knows what they've been through," Graham Wakeman, a charity director, says of Gary.
"We love seeing what money can do," Cath said."Money can do so much when it’s active. It’s not active in the bank, it’s not active in a new car or house—it’s active when you’re out there changing someone’s day, changing someone’s life, giving someone an ambition for their future they’ve never glimpsed before."
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