We recently received a donation of coins. In fact, it was literally hundreds of coins. The coins came from Ms. Mayo's 1st grade class at Whittier Elementary School.
The total amount from these 1st grade students?
$44.38
I know what most of you are thinking:
“Nice story but does it really matter?
You're right. It won't change the entire world but let's put it in perspective.
- Approximately 80% of the world live on less than $10US/day.
- Approximately 3 billion people live on less than $2US/day
- Approximately 1.4 billion people live on or less than $1.25US/day (the definition of extreme global poverty).
Want more perspective?
- $1 provides one person clean water for 1 year.
- $10 can purchase a bed net to help prevent malaria.
- $45 can pay the annual school tuition for one child in numerous parts of the world.
- $100 can provide a woman with a sewing machine, training, a goat, and a fresh start kit.
Yes, you're absolutely right that $44.38 won't end global poverty but let's give our cynicism a rest:
It can impact some person's life.
And by someone, we're not talking about a fictitious and nebulous statistic but a real person…a real human being. I love Mother Teresa's wisdom:
If you can't feed a hundred people, then just feed one.
– Eugene | Founder of ODW
