A Good Deed is Never Lost

Often in my daily life, I’m going to the same places, with “my people.” And while I know different sorts of people, I am bound in many ways to similar experiences with others. Yesterday and today and hopefully tomorrow, I am blessed to have food, as one example, as are many of my friends and family.

And while it seems important to found our opinions or actions in morals and values from our own experiences and relationships, I also wonder how easy it is to either ignore facts or not bother to learn them.

Let’s challenge ourselves to do two things this week:

#1 Google to learn one fact about something that people experience in our world – such as hunger or lack of schooling or another fact of your choosing – something that you do not experience, at least right now;

#2 Take one practical action this week that positively impacts those negatively affected by that statistic.

It is commonly held by communication experts that a single person’s story garners more action from supporters of a nonprofit organization than global facts or statistics. While I can understand why this is true, given how overwhelmed we might all feel with the world’s difficulties, I do not believe that we must accept this state of heart as a “fact” of its own.

Let’s seek to learn more.

The Mama Ada Foundation gives seeds and fertilizer to farmers with an acre or two of land; we often share stories of individual farmers but we also know this fact: About 800 million people in the world are hungry today.

This past year – The Mama Ada Foundation gave seeds to 234 farm families – lessening 800 million by many people’s lives. As Alexandre Dumas reminds us, “A good deed is never lost.”

P.S. And speaking of powerful gestures – here is a photo of farmers visiting a Field Day at Chepkoilel University in Eldoret – thanks to the organizing work of their neighbors, our partners, in Kenya. These and many other farmers had to opportunity to learn about innovative farming methods to increase their crop – and thus increase the food on their tables!

- Julie Keller

The Mama Ada Foundation