Values-Based Action

For the longest time, and I mean the longest time, I've thought about those who live in extreme poverty. True to my style I've felt for them. I've wondered what I can do to help.

I don't believe that my worrying made a difference. I'm certain that my prayers have been similarly effective.

This year 2008 Nancy and I are going to do something. (We've had a very meager success in sharing the Save Darfur petition with my mom.) High on that success, I am ready for more. Seems like the best I can do right now is help raise awareness and money to make a difference for those living in extreme poverty. (By the by, I'm pretty late. The Millennium Development Goals were established in 2000 and to be accomplished by 2015. We have a long way to go.)

So having decided that this is what I want to do with my 2008, I promptly reverted back into my head, imagining all the different ways that I can raise money. In no particular order, including bad ideas and good ideas, I thought about having a garage sale, recycling beer cans from the racetrack when NASCAR comes to Richmond, collecting cans at my desk, selling my collectibles, hosting a fundraising picnic, betting on horses, budgeting regular donations from my paycheck and selling my plasma. If getting tangled up in my head about how to raise money was not ridiculous enough, I became tangled in my head about what organization to donate the funds to: Heifer, Room to Read, One, Water Partners International, Charity: Water, Gift of Water, (product) red ...

Stop the madness! My refrain is stop dreaming, stop thinking, start acting. If this is important to me--if my core value is helping people--I need to do something. No matter how successful or awkward I am in acting, I am committed to taking action.

There's a story that's been retold throughout our company about the boy and man who walked along the beach that was littered with starfish that washed ashore. The boy walked down to the shore line, picked one up and threw it back into the ocean. The man questioned the boy. "What do you think you are doing? You can't make a difference to the starfish, there are just too many." The boy replied, "I made a difference to that one."

I can give a flock of chicks for $20.

For the cost of a shirt, I can give the gift of medicine that will prevent the transmission of HIV between mother and baby.

Obviously I can't do this alone. I will need help and encouragement. Nancy and I will have to come together, do a lot of communicating back and forth, and agree on how much we should try to raise.

Let's begin.