Further to my earlier post – Isn’t it Time? – I received the following and informative reminder comment from author Rebecca Heishman that I felt needed to be shared on a ‘Big’ page, not left to founder in a comment box:

Sadly, the people who will be reading your words here today already care. The fact that they are READING is evidence of that.

You’re preaching to the choir.

Interested involved citizens are already trying desperately to make a difference. Not everyone is lethargic or asleep in his life.

There are people out there in the world already making a difference. So, why haven’t you heard, you ask?

You haven’t heard about those things because no one is watching!

Here’s my beef: there are a lot of good people out there in the world, doing good and honorable things every day.

Where are the cameras?

Where is the press?

Let’s pull out our camera phones and get a video of an honorable police officer saving a life.

Let’s whip out the TV cameras when neighborhood children have a yard sale to make money for their classmate who has cancer.

Let’s document those dozens of teenagers in Louisville, KY who decided to  hold funerals and graveside services for homeless people who die without anyone caring enough to stand at their graveside and weep. (These kids are real, this is really happening in Louisville, it’s been going on for many years, but the press isn’t interested because they can’t spin it to create controversy and chaos.)

Why isn’t anyone documenting all the animal welfare/rescue groups in this country who are fighting valiantly to simply get the stupid pet owners in the country to spay and neuter their pets in order to control pet population?

We could eliminate animal shelters completely if people would simply DO THAT ONE SIMPLE THING!

We have children in Appalachia who are hungry. Rural poverty is ignored in this country. We don’t have to reach across oceans to make a difference. We have needs right here in this country  to attend to.

Let’s take some reporters to inner city schools and follow some teachers around for a few days and notice the fact that many of them spend their own money on school supplies for poor students whose families either can’t afford to buy them, or won’t, because they are out-of-touch because of drug addiction or mental illness.

I have teachers in my own family who do this all the time. No TV cameras are documenting their good deeds. This is happening, right here in our own country. Those teachers are fighting to make a difference.

But, the press isn’t there documenting those things.

We have young single moms who are working fulltime low-wage jobs and going to school to better their lot in life.

They struggle with rent, groceries, and childcare. But, nobody is recording what they are doing for posterity, and nobody is helping them.

When I was a new young nurse working my first job, I took it upon myself to help some of the single moms I worked with.

They were working as nursing assistants, and they worked very hard.

I watched their struggles.

One girl sold so much of her blood that she would faint on the job.

I couldn’t watch those things happen anymore. I decided to DO something.

There ARE things we can do.

Every time I got paid, I would anonymously buy gift certificates for three struggling young single moms who had no one to help them. I got their addresses and I would type the addresses on envelopes and send gift certificates to them all year.

I sent grocery store gift certificates. I would buy gift certificates to all-you-can-eat buffet-type restaurants…restaurants where a mom could eat and fill up a couple of teenagers.

Once in awhile, I’d buy gift certificates to beauty salons, just so the girls could feel pampered for a day.

On Mother’s Day, I bought gift certificates to a flower shop for each one. I did this for years, and to this day, those ladies have no idea I did that. They made it through school and bettered themselves. They are wonderful women and they haven’t needed my gift certificates for many years now.

I feel like a proud mom when I see them, successful in their own right.

I have the satisfaction of knowing that I helped, and yes….I DID something. So, don’t assume that, if you can’t seeing it happening, goodness isn’t happening out there in the world.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to make a difference.

There are good things going on in the world that you simply don’t know anything about.

Good deeds aren’t newsworthy.

There are people out there in the world doing good deeds. We just keep it to ourselves.

That’s the beauty of peace of mind. You don’t have to shout your good deeds from the rooftops in order to make a difference.

Most of the time, the ‘difference’ you make is within yourself, and that is a beautiful thing.

Maybe if you looked around, you’d see some of the beauty that’s happening around you. And if you can’t see it, maybe you should create some of it.

Just don’t expect anyone to notice.

All the cameras are too busy focusing on the negative.

Thank you Rebecca – you have shown how one person can make a difference.

I also know there are many others out there who quietly make a difference and the world has already improved for those helped.

My post was not intended to make light of their efforts.

It was a call to the silent majority of people who do nothing, not because they don’t care, but because they don’t think that anything they could do would make any difference to the world.

Rebecca is ONE PERSON.

She HAS made a difference.

Not by taking on the whole world, but by helping improve things for those around her.

One person at a time!

Make the Press Reporters and TV stations sit up and notice by telling them about the good people YOU know and the work they do.

Tell them and keep telling them, then tell them some more until they have no choice other than to acknowledge it!

One Reporter at a time!