(photo: Lorie Sheffer)
“Just because you can’t do everything doesn’t mean you can’t do something.”
So simple yet so powerful, that statement. Think of how many times we don’t do anything because we can’t do “enough”. We can’t solve the problems of hunger, poverty and sickness. We’ve all seen the TV commercial with the sad and unloved shelter pets, waiting for a home. We know that there are miles of roads littered with trash. Monarch butterflies are disappearing at an alarming rate, and the polar ice caps are rapidly melting.
Several years ago, when my daughter was working for a non-profit organization, I asked her about the private donations they depended on to fund their services. She said that they absolutely did depend on those large donations, but that the bulk of their donations were the accumulated monies of small donors. All of those $5, $10 and $25 donations really did make a huge difference.
When we are searching for a pet, we can all decide to visit a shelter. We can all carry a trash bag with us and clean up when we find along our normal walking route. We can all make a donation, no matter how small, to our local food bank, or volunteer a few hours to help sort and distribute. We can stop spraying weed killer on milkweed- the only plant on which Monarchs will lay their eggs- and incorporate them into our landscape. We can smile and say hello to someone, or hold open a door or let the person with only a few items who is in line behind us move in front of us.
If we all do something, that would mean everything.
