Just One Is All It Takes

As I was searching about teens and hunger today I came across a website called "Teens Fighting Hunger". I was intrigued. This nonprofit organization was started by a 16 year old in 2007 and continues to raise money to eradicate hunger in children today. It all started with a paper the founder wrote for school, where she learned that 12.4 million children go hungry each month in the United States. She decided to do something about it. She and her fellow volunteers make jewelry to sell at farmers markets all across Oregon. All the proceeds go to help end hunger in the United States. I've included a link to a video of Teens Fighting Hunger presenting a check to the Oregon Food Bank in the amount of $10,000.

Wow. I know sometimes it seems overwhelming because there are so many needs to be met throughout our community, the United States and the world. Where does one even begin? What can I do, I'm only one person. I can't make that big of a difference. I am sure we have all had these thoughts, we are human after all. Whenever I get overwhelmed with what I can and cannot do, I remember the following quote and I have hope. Hope, that I just might be able to make a difference in my corner of the world.

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. ~Edward Everett Hale

So many times we think about we cannot do but the truth is we may never know the impact of helping just one person. That person may one day pay it forward to someone and that person just might turn around and help someone else and on and on it goes. In 2000, there was a movie based on this principle of "paying it forward". According to the movie, if one person does one good deed for someone and that person pays it forward to three people and each of those three individuals paid it forward to three more people, by the end of two weeks 4,782,969 individuals will have been on the receiving end of a helping hand. Who says one person can't a difference? Not me.