Make a difference.

I get up every morning determined both to change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult. -E.B. White

Muhammad Yunus dreamed of “bringing dignity to the hundreds of millions of people all around the world who struggle everyday to make a living and bring hope for a better life for their children.” He started making a small “micro loan” to some impoverished bamboo weavers. They needed to buy some weaving tools, and they didn’t want to turn into loan sharks. They had no credit, but that didn’t stop Yunus and his big idea: loaning business development money to the less fortunate. The weavers thrived, and for his pioneering concept of microcredit, Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize. Overall, he’s lent $5.7 billion to about 7 million people, many of them living in remote villages of the world. With the money from the award, he hopes to put “homelessness and destitution in a museum.”

You don’t have to quit your job or sacrifice your family or all your free time to make a difference in the world. One person like you can change the social landscape of our country in a few hours a week.

“If every American donated five hours a week, it would equal the labor of twenty million full-time volunteers.” – Whoopi Goldberg

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you will reach your hand to comfort them and change their pain to joy. And may God bless you with the foolishness to think that you can make a difference in the world, so that you will do the things which others tell you cannot be done. – A Franciscan Benediction