The term mite box (also alms box or poor box) refers to a box that is used to save coins for charitable purposes. Contemporary mite boxes are usually made of cardboard and given out to church congregations during the Lenten season. The mite boxes are collected by the church and donations are given to the poor. Mite boxes are popular with children because they can fill them with small change and it teaches them the principle of giving to the poor.
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The term
mite box (also
alms box or
poor box) refers to a box that is used to save coins for charitable purposes. Contemporary mite boxes are usually made of cardboard and given out to church congregations during the Lenten season. The mite boxes are collected by the church and donations are given to the poor. Mite boxes are popular with children because they can fill them with small change and it teaches them the principle of giving to the poor. The Mite box giving promotes the spirit of contributing based on the intent to help others and not on the monetary amount.
The term
mite, according to the dictionary, is defined as one of the following:
- 1. a very small contribution or amount of money, such as a widow's mite.
- 2. a very small object, creature, or particle.
- 3. a coin of very small value, especially an obsolete British coin worth half a farthing.
The etymology of the word mite comes through
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the name given by historical linguists to the diverse forms of the English language in use between the late 11th century and about 1470, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing...
and
Middle DutchMiddle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects which were spoken and written between 1150 and 1500...
from the
Middle Low GermanMiddle Low German is a language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. It served as the international lingua franca of the Hanseatic League...
mīte, a small
FlemishFlanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands...
coin or tiny animal. In biblical times a mite or
leptonLepton pl. Lepta is the name of various fractional units of currency used in the Greek-speaking world from antiquity until today....
was a small coin of almost no worth.
See also:
- Lutheran Women's Missionary League
The Lutheran Women's Missionary League is an auxiliary organization of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. It was founded in 1942 to support missionary work through the collection of "mites," spare change named for the small coins in the lesson of the widow's mite in Mark 12 and Luke 21...
- Lesson of the widow's mite
For the 2009 movie, see The Widow's Mite.The Lesson ' of the widow's mite is a story present in the Synoptic Gospels , in which Jesus is teaching at the Temple in Jerusalem...
- Mite
Mites, along with ticks, belong to the subclass Acarina and the class Arachnida. Mites are among the most diverse and successful of all the invertebrate groups. They have exploited an incredible array of habitats, and because of their small size most go totally unnoticed...
- Coinage of Alexander Jannaeus, King of Judea