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Heroes: Alexander and Ruth Kerr

It was a big gamble.


In 1902, debt-ridden Alexander Kerr borrowed money to buy a patent on a glass vacuum jar that could be sealed at home. A San Francisco glass works company believed his dream, and four years later, the business was thriving.


When the 1906 earthquake devastated most of San Francisco, Kerr was informed that his factory, in the heart of the conflagration,had undoubtedly been destroyed. When the fires died, the Kerr factory was found intact within the smoldering ashes, not one glass jar broken.


The two-piece canning lid, invented in the Kerr kitchen in 1915, increased their business explosively. It is still being used today.


When Alexander died in 1925, Ruth took over, managing the successful company in comfortable shoes and the Bible on her desk.


The Kerr's business motto: Every time Kerr makes a dollar, God gets a dime.



It works.


"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty. "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." Malachi 3:10

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