November 19, 2015
A Texas boy donated all of the money in his piggy bank this week after a mosque was vandalized in what police are calling a hate crime, ABC News reports.
Police said torn pages of the Quran smeared with feces were found Monday morning outside the entrance of the Islamic Center of Pflugerville, Texas.
That afternoon, 7-year-old Jack Swanson visited and donated $20 that he reportedly had originally collected in the form of pennies over time, one of the mosque's board members told ABC News.
"Jack's $20 are worth $20 million to us because it's the thought that counts," Faisal Naeem, one of the mosque's board members, told ABC News on Wednesday. "Jack is just a little older than my son, Ibrahim. If we have more kind-hearted kids like them in the world, I have hope for our future."
Naeem added that he didn't want to assume the vandalism was motivated by news of the Paris terror attacks until police conclude their investigation. However, he said he was frustrated that such "generalizations" are often applied to the Muslim community after extremist attacks.
A mosque member told police that cleanup costs were estimated to be about $150.
Read more from ABC News here.
