Traditionally we have read the Widow's Mite story as a story about boundless generosity and self-sacrifice. But we should first read it in the context in which Mark (12:38-44) wrote it, as a tragic evidence of the religious exploitation for which Jesus condemned the Temple religious establishment.
Before reading the story as a model to encourage generosity to organized religion we need to read it first as a condemnation of the use of religion to exploit simple, suffering and powerless humanity.
Jesus is teaching in the Temple. He has just condemned the unscrupulous scribes who devour widows' property under the pretext of religious fervour. Then he looks up and sees this widow putting "everything she had, her whole living" into the treasury and he points to her and says, "See what I mean?"
The scribes never literally robbed widows' houses. But by their teaching they exploited widows by persuading them in their privation to give up even the very little they had.