The quirkiest offer to help Lane and Sandy Minnig came from a longtime Broncos season-ticket holder. He planned to donate some of the money made selling his seats to the AFC championship for $750 apiece.
The most moving offer came from a disabled woman who planned to share a portion of her disability check.
The cleverest move came from a guy who e-mailed a promissory note for the Minnigs to hand their landlord as they faced him Tuesday in eviction court.
Since Monday, when I wrote about the imminent homelessness of a Denver cancer victim and his wife, the outpouring of help has been as inspired as it was inspiring. Dozens of people tried to help. Some wrote rent checks to the Minnigs’ landlord. Others mailed checks to the couple’s modest home in south Denver. One woman hand-delivered a gift bag with a box of candy and a $50 check. A fellow offered a used Buick. A civic club even chipped in.
Individual thank-you notes will be forthcoming for all benefactors for whom the Minnigs have an address. For everyone, known and unknown, they also wanted to extend hearty and humble public thanks, along with a promise to return the favor for someone in need once they get back on their feet.
In fact, what goes around has already come around. Years ago, the Minnigs let a young man move into their home for nine months. This week, the man’s parents provided a month’s rent to pay down arrears built up while Lane Minnig underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments for tonsil cancer.
Most of the donors, however, have been strangers.
People gave to a family they didn’t know but with whom they identified, a family in danger of being ruined by a ruinous disease.
“The response of all of the people was a tremendous lift to me,” Lane Minnig, 57, said Thursday after he returned from the doctor. “There are not enough words I could say to thank the people. There are no actions I could take. It still wouldn’t be enough.”
Surely not enough to explain the relief of arriving in eviction court Tuesday with the means to pay the back rent that accumulated as Lane Minnig went through cancer treatment in the summer and fall and his 56-year-old wife got laid off from her job in September.
In court, the Minnigs sat down with their landlord and worked out an agreement, which a judge signed: If the Minnigs produced two $815 rent payments by today, the landlord would withdraw his court action.
The generosity of strangers produced not two but three $815 payments, including the one from the e-mail.
As the landlord left court, he called the man who sent the e-mail, Sandy Minnig said. “That guy,” she added, “met the landlord within 20 minutes after court.”
Support continues to filter in, and with it, hope. Things are still tough. After being limited to part-time duty for several months because of his health, Lane Minnig was laid off from his cashier’s job last Friday. “Friday the 13th,” he said.
Now, in addition to rent and car payments, the unemployed couple faces $225-a-month payments to keep Lane’s health insurance active under the federal COBRA program.
But Lane Minnig has already had an interview for another job. He feels strong enough to work full time and says that with luck, he could be re-employed in a couple of weeks.
His wife has a job interview Monday.
Meanwhile, someone from downstate Colorado has agreed to make a couple of payments to the company that holds the Minnigs’ car loan. And checks made out to the couple arrive daily in the mail.
“The people here in Colorado,” said an awed Lane Minnig, “when it comes to push and shove, they step forward and push.”
Their effort hopefully will provide the momentum needed to return a middle- class couple to the place they feel most comfortable.
“All we want to do,” said Sandy Minnig, “is get back on our feet and pay our own bills.”
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
