One of those seven is Give a Little-How your small Donations can Change the World by Wendy Smith. I was immediately interested in this book. Most Americans are not rich and don't have an extra million to give away yearly but most of us do have an extra twenty, fifty or even a hundred we can give away to help someone. And the good news is that those little donations DO MAKE a DIFFERENCE! You don't have to be Bill Gates or Oprah to impact change
From Wendy's book: "One of the world's deepest pockets, perhaps the deepest pocket of all, is the collective and generous pockets of American citizens. And, I'm not talking about wealthy citizens only; I'm talking about everyday individuals who have an enormous leverage that most know nothing about. That leverage is the billions of dollars you donate to charities every year. In 2007, your donations amounted to $229,000,000,000. That is NOT a mistake. The figure is, indeed, $229 billion."
To put it into perspective:
- $229 billion is greater than the gross domestic products of 136 of 180 countries around the world
- $229 billion is over 21 times Wal-Mart's profits of 11.3 billion in fiscal year 2007
- $229 billion is 114.5 times the total giving by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2007 ($2 Billion)
During the first half of the twentieth century, Polio was one of the most feared diseases in the developed world. The disease caused paralysis and use of the iron lung to force air into and out of the lungs. There were tens of thousands of infections each year in the U.S. with a peak of 57,628 cases in 1952--more than 21,000 resulting in paralysis. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a polio victim himself, established the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis in 1938. The foundation hired Eddie Cantor, a star in radio and vaudeville, to lead a campaign to combat polio by asking his fans to send a single dime to the President. The campaign was called "the March of Dimes," referencing a popular newsreel called The March of Time.
In the first year 1.8 million was raised, with $238,000 arriving one dime at a time! The White House was forced to hire extra clerks to help manage the waves of mail and according to some White House workers, the difficulty of finding official mail among the millions of envelopes of dimes nearly halted daily operations within the government.
Donations increased every year. Even during the war, dimes poured in with nearly 20 million raised by 1945. In total, the campaign raised a total of 622 million by 1959. Those dimes helped fund research by Dr. Jonas Salk, who produced an effective vaccine that reduced the number of infections from over 20,000/year in the early 1950's to approximately 3,000 in 1960. By 1979, the disease was eradicated in the U.S. An ocean of dimes had eliminated one of the country's worst nightmares.
$3/year could help eliminate tuberculosis, the widest-spread disease around the world and responsible for more than 5,000 deaths every day
$20 provides 400 lbs of food to hungry children in the United States
$50 pays a teacher's salary in Afghanistan for a month, allowing 30 children to get an education
You don't have to be rich to help someone. You just have to be willing to give. By giving up eating out once a month, that money can feed starving children. By giving up one Starbucks, you can help eliminate tuberculosis. One idea I found that I fell in love with is fasting from a meal, snack or coffee and instead giving that money to charity. Can you imagine how much you could give if once a week or month you fasted from something that is a luxury?
If you don't have a lot of extra cash after everything is paid and your family is taken care of, whatever you have will help and make a difference. Don't be afraid to give a little. Every little bit adds up especially the more you do it and the more everyone does it =)
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