I am lucky, blessed, really.

Each day I

• wake up to the sweetest alarm: my almost 4 year old daughter
• enjoy a calm, un-rushed healthy breakfast with my whole family at the dining room table
• work from home on my dream career: children’s photographer
• am grateful for free part-time childcare from my parents and mother-in-law
• eat a natural, whole foods, vegetarian dinner with my whole family at the dining room table
• relax in my cozy home
• read stories and snuggle with my daughter
• go to sleep next to the love of my life in an always cozy bed

In addition, each Wednesday is family day with Jim and Syna.

Each Friday night is date night with my husband. (We’ve been together for 19 years.)

Each Saturday is family date night with Jim and Syna.

Each Sunday is family breakfast with my dad’s family (whoever decides to show – 4-15 people)

I have nothing to complain about. Truly. And I worry about others. Most of the world doesn’t have it nearly as good as I do. I feel extravagant, even when I appreciate what I have and do what I can to minimize my impact on the planet.

We’ve downsized to 1 car, we got rid of cable television, we compost our food waste (and it’s most of it since we’re vegetarian) and recycle to the extent that our family of 3 “throws out” 1 grocery bag of trash per week, we telecommute, we used cloth diapers for our daughter, we bring our own reusable bags to stores and purchase items with limited packaging, we switched our heating system to a high efficiency solution, we shower every other day… We’re conscious of many of our decisions.

And yet we use so much. We have so much. We are never even uncomfortable. We have heat in the winter, air conditioning in the summer, food available 24/7, constant electricity, transportation, money, instant communication devices, we’re safe. Even on the coldest/hottest days, if I travel, I walk 30′ outdoors to my garage protected car, start it up, turn on the heat/air and I’m comfortably on my way.

It has long been my belief that to truly help others I must start with myself.

To put the world in order, we must put the nation in order.
To put the nation in order, we must put the family in order.
To put the family in order, we must nurture our personal life.
To cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.
- Confucius

But it doesn’t seem like enough when I have so much. And, really, it’s all by luck I ended up being born into my situation.

“There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

How do I stay happy when I am aware of so much suffering?

TED Talk

Researcher Hans Rosling uses his cool data tools to show how countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. He demos Dollar Street, comparing households of varying income levels worldwide. Then he does something really amazing.

more videos

Poverty Facts

• Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.
• The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.
• Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
• Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.
• 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

more Poverty Facts and Stats, here, too

The Girl Effect

Give a Loan to the Working Poor

Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is a non-profit that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in the developing world.

You choose who to lend to – whether a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq – and as they repay their loan, you get your money back. It’s a powerful and sustainable way to empower someone right now to lift themselves out of poverty. kiva.org

Take Action
Below is a sample set of actions taken from the “Morning” section of Our Day to End Poverty:
Also check out our quickstart guides for tips on great places to start working with Our Day!

Break the Fast
Learn—Have some serious fun with children. Download Food Force, a video game developed by the World Food Programme to teach children about world hunger food-force.com. Players work to get food aid to a fictional country in need, overcoming challenges and discovering the thrill of working to solve a serious global problem.

Serve—Lend a hand. Volunteer at a local food bank or other program that serves people who are hungry. Visit secondharvest.org to find a local food bank or food rescue organization that can use your help.

Educate Every Child
Contribute—Organize a school-supply drive or a book drive through your school, workplace, civic group, or place of worship. Donate the supplies to a school in the United States or overseas.

Serve—Join with others who are advocating legislation that seeks to eliminate school fees in the developing world. RESULTS, results.org, a grassroots lobby dedicated to ending world hunger and poverty, is taking action on this initiative.

Live—Read to a child in your life every day. Talk about what has happened in the story and what might happen.

Give All Children Healthy Futures
Learn—Read Tracy Kidder’s book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, about the work of Dr. Paul Farmer in Haiti and around the world, to learn more about how we can improve health in developing countries. Its bibliography lists publications for further reading.

Consume with Conscience
Contribute—Use “buy one, get one free offers as a way of contributing at no extra cost to you. Donate the “free” item, whether it is a can of food or a pair of shoes, to an organization that serves people in your community who are in need.

Live—Join the local business Chamber of Commerce branch that represents trade between your local region and foreign markets. By doing business with integrity, in a fair, honest, and lawful way, you will lead by example and encourage other business people to treat their trading partners with respect and dignity.

Give from the Heart: More Thoughts on Giving
Become more savvy about charities by visiting the National Charities Information Bureau, give.org, Charity Watch charitywatch.org, and Charity Navigator charitynavigator.org. They will provide you with information on charitable organizations in an effort to help you make wise choices when giving.

Plan an annual celebration that affirms the impact of your giving. For example, if you sponsor a child in a developing country, have a “birthday party” on their child’s birthday and talk about the things that the child has been able to do over the past year because of your contribution.

Purchase your copy of Our Day to End Poverty today!

Please help them to get to $20k.

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