YES ! ... you just have to know where to shop
i changed someone’s life with toilet paper.
i bet you're wondering how i did that, right ?. you're thinking that you might like to do that too if that's all it takes, right ?. nothing fancy or unduly glam. just some toilet paper. couldn't be simpler. well, before i tell you, let me just explain why i was in two minds about writing this article.
i find it repellant when people perform charitable acts and then go around big noting themselves for it. although i hope it's clear that this is not my intention, i do realise that a some people will misunderstand my motivation, so i've decided i can stand that as long as i get this message across.
last christmas, i opened a card with an illegible postmark. inside was a photo of a 7yo sri-lankan boy and his family. they are facing the sun, squinting slightly. they are smiling. and they love me. i have never met them, but they love me. the reason that they love me is that i decided my butt didn't know the difference between soft embossed 3-ply and nasty shiny white anyway.
and i spent the difference on sponsoring a child.
inside this card, in halting english, a childs' hand has inscribed the words "your support lightens my life". as i read those words, it occurred to me that nobody had ever said them to me before. i've had my fair share of accolades from friends and family, but the type of support that can lighten a life isn't something i get a chance to give everyday.
i started out as much a skeptic as the next person. i too had heard the stories of hard-earned money committed as donations being mismanaged or squandered by irresponsible or dishonest "charities". i was even suspicious of how much of my own tiny "drop in the ocean" was likely to have it's value eroded by "administration" costs.
world vision was such an eye opener. they are accountable, audited, and their annual report is published online. incredibly, just over 78% of their donations are expended directly on aid. they manage on an admin budget of just over 9%, and 10.9% is expended in fundraising. through them, 350,000 australians help over 10 million people annually.
seeing a 7 year old boy, an actual living, breathing child, waving and smiling with love in his heart from across the world seems like a bargain at $1.30 a day. he sends short letters which his older sister helps him translate into english. he tells me he likes to send "his very nicest writing" to us so we will feel proud of what he is achieving with our support.
as his 8th birthday approaches, we have been guided in our choice of an appropriate gift by world vision. we are sending a brightly coloured cartoon-style wall map of australia, along with some sticker sheets of australian animals, plants, places, etc. this is inexpensive, cheap to post, and (hard though it is to believe with our disposable western culture), will probably be amongst his favourite things.
to say that makes me feel good may sound like an understatement, but it's true. i don't feel proud. in fact, i usually feel like i don't do nearly enough. but i do feel good in the truest sense of the word. it's not the physical, smiley, contented good i usually mean when i say good. it's the eye-opening joy that i take pleasure from this, because only good people can do that.
so it seems fair to say that this little boy is helping me far more than i could even help him. that he writes to us and says "dear sponsor parents", that he understands that we are giving to him voluntarily what we could spend on ourselves, that he thinks of us as generous and kind even though he still has far less than we could ever dream of existing on. those things matter to me.
and toilet paper just can't measure up to that. embossed three-ply or not.
the world vision australia website: Link