Kevin recently had the opportunity to visit with and
photograph some of the volunteers at the United Way Day of Caring event on May
16th.
The first year the Day of Caring had 70 volunteers and
covered 7 locations. This year, numbers reached
over 300 volunteers of individuals, businesses, and civic groups and even the
Batavia Student Council covering 34 work sites from fixing up old bicycles for
re-use to sprucing up the playground at the School for the Blind.
They also listen to a story with a great pay-it-forward
message about a boy and puzzles. A young
boy at school loved doing puzzles but didn’t like classwork and for that his
grades suffered. This teacher invited the
boy to do puzzles in her room during his lunch period. She encouraged him and offered up words of
kindness. One day she bought a 20,000
piece puzzle for him to work on. His
grades began to improve with her encouragement and by the end of his 7th
grade year he went from almost failing to a solid B student. The next 5 years came and went with him
visiting this teacher to work on the massive 20,000 piece puzzle but he didn’t even
complete it by graduation.
He took it to college…Associates…Bachelors…Masters…and a
Doctorate degree later her FINALLY finished the puzzle and wanted to share this
success with his teacher that started it all.
She was proud of him no doubt, and thanked her for her encouragement because
he recognized that without it he may not have gotten so far in life and
achieved so much. Her message to him was
that it was now his turn to help someone else the way she had helped him.
It just goes to show that, sometimes it’s just the little
things you can do that make a difference.
Something as simple as kind words of encouragement can help someone in
ways you couldn’t have imagined.
No comments:
Post a Comment