Random Act of Kindness
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area where bridge tolls sometimes are paid by strangers. One day as I drove up to the Golden Gate Bridge to pay my toll, the teller told me that the car in front of me paid my $6 bridge toll. This simple random act of kindness caught me by surprise. The person in front me did not assess if I could or could not pay my toll. They simply acted from their heart. Since then I started doing the same thing. I found myself paying other peoples bridge tolls and giving money to the homeless and children organizations when I felt moved to.
In reflecting on the enormous challenges I have faced as an independent publisher, and the random act of kindness in funding that has come my way has been an ethereal and spiritual experience. Both of our subscribers and advertisers have helped us continue to donate over 15 million print copies of Diabetes Health magazine to communities in need of education.
A Time to Help Others
There are many wonderful non-profits that reach out to the general public to selflessly help people in need. If you would like to be an Angel to a child at camp, help a women get a scholarship to the Diabetes Sisters conference or supply a person in need with diabetes supplies, here are 3 organizations that will use your donations to help people with diabetes.
DECA
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=MDA7W6MNHRF96
I fell in love with the Diabetes Education Camping Association back in 2000. Their primary focus is to bring together children in camps to provide the best away from home experience. They are staffed with a stellar team that include healthcare professionals.
Children with diabetes come to these camps from communities where they are perceived as the anomaly. The camp experience gives these same children the opportunity to be the norm. Imagine, every child waking up
and doing the same thing throughout the day.
Parents find relief, knowing that their children with diabetes will be safe and well supervised in their absence.
CR3
Charles Ray III was diagnosed with diabetes at a time when he could not afford the supplies he needed to take care of himself. Luck had it; he resembled a famous NBA player. People confused him with a professional athlete and consequently donated diabetes supplies to him. It paid to look like someone famous.
Charles’s firsthand experience as someone that wanted to take care of his diabetes and lacked the resources to do so; is what inspired him to start his non-profit.
The purpose of CR3 is to get supplies to motivated people with diabetes who can not afford to test or go on an insulin pump. What I find unique about his site is that you can go online and choose whom to support by reading their profile. You can make a one-time donation or a monthly donation and know exactly who will benefit from your kind gesture.
Diabetes Sisters
https://diabetessisters.org/donate
Founder Brandy Barnes brings a unique and a caring voice to women with diabetes. Her mission is to encourage other women with diabetes to meet on a regular basis to eliminate the isolation she once felt. These meetings are supports groups, which her organization refers to as “pods”. You can go online to see if there is a pod near you or how to start your own pod.
Her annual conferences are extremely fun and affordable. She also offers scholarships to women that want to attend and cannot afford it.
You can watch this short video of Brandy’s 2014 Los Angeles conference
To get a sense of what you might experience. This video takes 10 seconds to load- https://diabeteshealth.com/tv/play/227.html
Help these outstanding non-profits help others by donating what you can. No donation is too small. I also would love it if you went to our Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/TheDiabetesHealth and tell us what you decide to do as random act of kindness.
Margaret Mead’s wisdom is a great reminder to us all when she says,
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
