This blog is about my experiences as a volunteer with RESULTS. And what is RESULTS? RESULTS is a grassroots lobby with two goals:
- Ending the worst aspects of hunger and poverty
- Helping individuals reconnect with their political power.
To accomplish the first goal it helps people with the second goal.
RESULTS started in 1980 and since that time has led the way in reducing poverty and hunger around the world. RESULTS understands that the problems of hunger and poverty in the world are caused by a lack of political will rather than a lack of food or resources. RESULTS educates people and helps them exercise their power to encourage their government leaders to support proven, cost-effective development programs that help people raise themselves out of poverty.
Why do I volunteer in RESULTS? Two reasons:
- I cannot accept a world in which where a child is born largely determines whether that child will live past his or her fifth birthday, whether that child will learn to read or write, or whether that child will become an adult earning more than $1.25 (U.S.) a day.
- I strongly believe that as a person who was lucky enough to be born a citizen of the United States, the most powerful and democratic nation on Earth, I have a responsibility to help those less fortunate than me.
Twenty years ago, as a new volunteer in RESULTS, I learned that 40,000 children under the age of five died each day of hunger and preventable diseases. Knowing that statistic, I could not live with myself if I stood by, especially as a citizen of the United States, and did nothing to reduce that daily death toll. Today, the estimate varies between 21,000 and 25,000 children under the age of five still dying each day of hunger and preventable disease. Knowing that statistic, I still could not live with myself if I did nothing, so I continue volunteering in RESULTS.
Why RESULTS? Of all the volunteer organizations I know, RESULTS is the one that is having the greatest affect on lowering that daily rate. I’ve heard several U.S. Congressmen and international development leaders agree on RESULTS’ results. “RESULTS is the greatest citizen’s lobbying organization in the history of Western civilization,” said Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH). I can’t put it any better.
Why am I a “reluctant” activist? Because there are a lot of other things I would rather do than stretch my personal comfort zone in the ways that RESULTS asks me to do.
This blog is about me, fighting me. The part of me who can’t live with the shame of doing nothing while ignoring the plight of others less lucky than me grappling with the part of me that wants to ignore others and live within my own comfort zone.
I aim to share with any who have read this far the fear, courage, anger, joy, doubt, surety, frustration, thankfulness, and finally pride I feel being a RESULTS volunteer. Hopefully, my tales can inspire you to join me in RESULTS or to join whatever volunteer organization whose goals you believe in. By our own actions, however halting and reluctant, may we improve the world around us and doing so, improve our own lives at the same time.