Editor’s note: Recently Krista Smith, a wife, mother, and artist, launched a campaign to raise money for our Help One Classroom campaign. Today she’s sharing her story about how simple it is to do good and drive real change. If you would like sponsor a classroom, then visit our #HelpOneClassroom page. Or if you’d like to set up your own fundraising campaign, visit Pure Charity.
Doing good is simple. I don’t really think there is any way around it~ which makes it not just our privilege, but our duty. I can sit around forever feeling sorry for people, or I can take the simple step to actually do something about it. I LOVE the way Brandon Hatmaker put it in Barefoot Church, “We often confuse the heart of compassion that requires a response with the feeling of sympathy that remains idle.”
After six months of reading a lot of books and following/researching different charities, I found my heart rocked with compassion for poverty-stricken people. And yet, I remained hesitant to move in a solid direction of ‘help’ to them. For a lot of reasons.
Asking for money is intimating to me.
So much is wrong in the world, will any effort on my part really make a difference? Like, a real change? How do I get people to feel inspired to support a cause? And the list went on…
Here is how simple it became, at least in my case…
When I read about Help One Classroom, I was freaking out inside. The education aspect of this campaign totally resonated with me.
The faces of the teachers made it very evident that ——>>>>YES, this cause will absolutely CHANGE this teachers life, and this one’s, and this one’s….(and so on)<<<<——–
Now all I needed to do was get creative. Figure out how to use whatever gift(s) I have to get other’s attention…hearts…help.
I posted my fundraiser on Pure Charity.
Facebook and blogged it.
And just over 24 hours later, had met the one time goal of $2500–which is the yearly salary for one teacher. The craziest thing about it~ people are STILL donating. We have exceeded the goal by over $700 dollars as of today!
It was as simple as moving from questions into action.
From sympathy to compassion.
People are looking for a way to change their world.
We all want to have an impact.
All it takes to make a difference is stepping into it~ rallying people who already want to do good and focusing their efforts a bit.
Putting a Help One Classroom fundraiser on my social media pages literally allowed hundreds of people around the world to gather together and make a difference in one Haitian teacher’s life this year. And it only took 24 hours to do it.
That is simple, people.
And it is good.
And it is real change.