“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” ― Mother Teresa
Things were rough during the Great Depression. Jobs evaporated and many families faced desperate circumstances. Some families, though, found themselves with enough and to spare and shared what they could.
My 96-year-old grandmother remembers her mother feeding men who came knocking on doors looking for food. My great-grandmother always fed those men — after they did the odd jobs around the home that she held in reserve, just for them.
She didn’t start a food pantry or nonprofit organization, she didn’t campaign for changes in public policy and most of the men she fed likely didn’t even remember her name. But what she did mattered. Feeding one person mattered.
People who need help are in every neighborhood, every community, every state and every nation. You do not need to cross an ocean to find someone who needs your help, although you can. The needs that surround us are great. Sometimes the needs are so great and so overwhelming that we don’t know where to start, feeling as if our efforts are too small to matter. Overwhelm often leads to inaction. The reality is, no effort is too small. Every effort matters.
Brandon Stanton, creator of “Humans of New York,” spoke at RootsTech on Thursday. He shared with us how he started. It was just one picture, seven years ago, of a couple of little boys on a subway train. One day, he took a picture of a woman dressed all in green and asked her about her outfit. She told him she used to wear one color each day — red, blue, purple, but on the day she wore green, she had a good day. So, she started wearing green every day — and it had been 17 years.
The story of the “lady in green” was so interesting that for the first time when he posted the photo, he also added a caption. People started to respond and engage in ways they had not with just a picture and voilà — an engaging business was born.
What really stood out, though, is the way Stanton described his work: one person at a time, one story at a time.
He said, “When I stop and ask these people about their lives, I am often the only person who has ever asked.”
People are starved for connection and want to share their stories. Being heard matters.
Katie Davis, author of “Kisses from Katie,” writes: “People who really want to make a difference in the world usually do it, in one way or another. And I’ve noticed something about people who make a difference in the world: They hold the unshakable conviction that individuals are extremely important, that every life matters. They get excited over one smile. They are willing to feed one stomach, educate one mind, and treat one wound. They aren’t determined to revolutionize the world all at once; they’re satisfied with small changes. Over time, though, the small changes add up. Sometimes they even transform cities and nations, and yes, the world.”
One smile matters. One meal matters. One healing matters.
Remember those old ads inviting us to “Reach out and touch someone”? That was about a phone call, a conversation, with one person. We’re probably all familiar with adage “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” The journey to feeding a thousand people starts with a single meal. The journey to becoming a master mentor starts with helping one person. Often, when you start reaching out to the one, you find that your effort snowballs and turns into something bigger — but it doesn’t have to. It’s great if it does and it’s great if it doesn’t.
Richelle Goodrich said, “Service is a smile. It is an acknowledging wave, a reaching handshake, a friendly wink, and a warm hug. It’s these simple acts that matter most, because the greatest service to a human soul has always been the kindness of recognition.”
If you ever wonder if one person can make a difference, the answer is absolutely. Indeed, that’s really the only way you can make a difference — one by one by one.
Holly Richardson, a Salt Lake Tribune columnist, is in awe of the many people she knows who make a difference day after day, pouring into the ocean of human need drop by beautiful drop.