Saturday, June 26, 2010

Inspirational Poems




The Victor
Poet: C.W. Longenecker

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don’t
If you like to win but think you can’t,
It’s almost a cinch you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost.
For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellow’s will
It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are.
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win the prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man.
But sooner or later, the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.


Steps to Happiness
Poet: Unknown

Everybody Knows,
You can't be all things to all people.
You can't do all things at once.
You can't do all things equally well.
You can't do all things better than everyone else.
Your humanity is showing just like everyone else's.

So,
You have to find out who you are, and be that.
You have to decide what comes first, and do that.
You have to discover your strengths, and use them.
You have to learn not to compete with others, because no one else is in the contest of "being you".

Then,
You will have learned to accept your own uniqueness.
You will have learned to set priorities and make decisions.
You will have learned to live with your limitations.
You will have learned to give yourself the respect that is due.
And you'll be a most vital mortal.

Believe,
That you are a wonderful, unique person.
That you are a once-in all history event.
That it's more than a right, it's your duty, to be who you are.
That life is not a problem to solve, but a gift to cherish.
And you'll be able to stay one up on what used to get you down.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

84 Year Old Man Helps Give Kids A Smile



George Ouellette may be retired after 40 years as a salesman, but he still works up to six or seven hours per day walking through parks, hillsides, along busy roads and even rummaging through garbage cans to collect cans and bottles to help create smiles for children in need. The 84-year-old collects enough cans and bottles to equal $250, reimbursable for five-cents each at the local recycling center, and then writes a check to Operation Smile for the full amount.
Since 2005, Ouellette has collected over 100,000 cans, raising a total of $4,440 and providing 19 surgeries for children suffering from clefts. He collects around 1,000 cans a week year-round. Even the winter season in Chelmsford, Mass., doesn’t slow down his mission as he wears flannel-lined jeans to keep warm.
Ouellette first started volunteering and supporting Operation Smile when he saw a television show on Operation Smile in 2005. Ouellette could not believe that a child’s cleft lip or cleft palate could be repaired for only $240.
“The work of Operation Smile struck a chord in my dad and he decided that this would be his job - his purpose,” said Sue Ouellette, his eldest daughter.
Now, the employees at the recycling center know Ouellette so well that they don’t even bother to count the cans anymore – they merely ask him how many he has and give him the money. Ouellette’s 90-year-old wife supports his cause as the bookkeeper for the funds he raises.
Ouellette said collecting cans made him a bit uncomfortable at first, as people looked at him like he was a vagrant, but because he knows how much good he is doing with the money he continues to collect recyclables and tells everyone he encounters why he is collecting cans.
As he walks and collects cans, he hands out Operation Smile marketing materials to spread the word and shows pictures of children Operation Smile has helped when people ask why he is collecting cans. Ouellette is sure to mention that a child’s smile can be transformed for only $240.
In sharing his cause while collecting cans, Ouellette has developed a circuit of other supporters who save cans for him. He often makes his “rounds” to collect them and then he collects his own supply.
Ouellette also has the support of his four grown children, who buy him warm clothes and items for collecting cans and bottles as holiday gifts.
“My dad was a hard-working salesman for many years. However, he felt like he had not done enough to give back to the world, even after raising and educating four children,” said Sue Ouellette. “He’s not only an amazing father and volunteer; he’s an inspiration to anyone.”

Stop in and check out "Operation Smile"
Operation Smile

Monday, June 14, 2010

I'm Still here :)




Wow!! It has been awhile since I was able to be on here. I hope you have all been well. Thank you so much for all your comments. Life has been so busy...

I hope to continue blogging and I hope the stories I find make you smile and give you hope.Have a great night or day depending where you are right now...I will see you soon...

For today I leave you with this movie quote...Funny movie but I find the main character so lovable and inspiring.....

"Kindness is just Love with it's work boots on"

(Love It)

$10 Dollar Man




This story is so beautiful and inspiring..You can find Reeds 365 Days of giving blog here. Go check it out http://yearofgiving.wordpress.com/about/
Copy and paste the link....For some reason the insert link is not working.

— The guy behind the meat counter is looking at Reed Sandridge kind of strangely. Giving away $10 every day to a stranger — an idea Sandridge had soon after he was laid off from his job at a Washington nonprofit group last fall — isn’t as easy as it sounds.

Carlos Canales, a 28-year-old butcher at Eastern Market, is hesitant to take the money. “What do I have to do?” he asks.

No strings, no hook. Sandridge, 36, a businessman-turned-shoe-leather philanthropist, just wants to help. His mom, the daughter of a coal miner whom he remembers most for her kindness, always told him that when you’re going through tough times, that’s when you most need to give back.

So not long after he was laid off, on the third anniversary of his mom’s death, he started his “year of giving,” documenting each $10 gift in a small black notebook and then blogging about the people he meets. By Day 94, he had given away almost $1,000, handing out money in blizzards, in rainstorms, on the sunniest of days. He gave $10 to a guy playing the trumpet outside Verizon Center, the president of a brewery, someone dressed up as the Statue of Liberty, a hard-drinking PhD, a man who held up a basketball to block helicopters overhead from eavesdropping on their conversation, the curator of a small museum and a whole lot of homeless people.

Sandridge, who is outgoing and has a ready grin, and, sometimes, a brown scruff of almost-beard, knows $10 is precious little, even to the most down-and-out. It feels significant only when the daily donations are subtracted from his shrinking bank account. He’s been using his savings and a few hundred a week in unemployment benefits to pay the mortgage on his home in Dupont Circle. But he hopes he will network his way to a salary again long before he runs out of cash.

A learning curve

But the year of giving is not about the money. Sandridge is trying to spread an idea. Doing nice things all the time is addictive, he said.

Besides, he added, “being unemployed, I was starting to go nuts.”

He wanders the city looking for strangers who appear as if they might need help or have an interesting story to tell. He has a few rules: He gives only $10, and he doesn’t take anything in exchange.

He’s getting better at it. The first three times he tried, people refused, suspicious, and walked away. Now, he easily persuades people to take his money — even Canales, after a few moments, accepts the $10 bill — and to tell him what they’re going to do with the unexpected gift.

Every once in a while, he knows the money really helps someone. It pays for a meal or turns someone’s lousy day into one that feels lucky.

On his fifth day, in the middle of a fierce snowstorm, he met Davie McInally, a Scottish man with icicles frozen in his thick beard who was carrying his belongings in a backpack and trying to get to New York to enlist in the military. McInally hoped to serve on active duty and earn his citizenship, and the $10, added to his $14, made a bus ticket possible.

“I am sure there have been quite a few people now that those 10 dollars have really helped, or made their life or even their days a lot better,” McInally wrote in an e-mail.

The generosity comes naturally to Sandridge, who grew up in a close family in a small Pennsylvania town.

He studied international business and Spanish at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, worked for a Finnish telecommunications software company, for which he started a subsidiary in Brazil (sleeping in his office sometimes because he was working so much), returned to the United States to oversee its Americas operations, and then joined the management team of a health nonprofit founded by the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation.

Sandridge tells people that he doesn’t care what they do with his money. But that’s not exactly true. When someone who is jobless and has alcohol on his breath says he’ll buy a drink, Sandridge doesn’t regret the gift but hopes the next $10 has a better impact than just another buzz.

His favorites are those (more than 30) who say they’ll use the money to help someone else: He likes to see the $10 snowball. A woman went to a homeless shelter the night after she met Sandridge and found someone who could use the gift. A Haitian man who had just learned that his mother had died in the earthquake told Sandridge that he was going to the island to look for other relatives and would put the money toward bringing satellite phones there.

Ideas to help others

On his Web site, Sandridge keeps a list of ideas for helping those he has met: Ron, who has experience with heavy machinery, wants day-labor work. Nikki needs help with filing disability claims. Garland, a street drummer, wants gigs. Anthony needs a pair of size 9 sneakers.

Sometimes, someone following the blog, another stranger, will step in to help.

“He forces attention to people who are usually ignored,” said his brother Ryan Sandridge. “I hope others maybe slow their life down just a little bit and see that there’s more than just the daily grind. I don’t know if that’s part of his message or not — but that’s one of the things I take out of it. Look around, pay more attention, be more giving.”

Canales takes the money, talks to Sandridge some in Spanish and introduces him to his father, Emilio Canales. Carlos tells him that when he was a little boy, he would sleep under the tables behind the meat counter while his father and uncles set up their stands early in the morning. He’s not sure what to do with the $10. Maybe the next time someone asks him for food, he will give it to that person.

“I’ll pass it along,” Canales said.

Sandridge has already started to think about Dec. 16, when the year is over. “It’s going to be a letdown,” he said.

Sometimes people ask him: Why not give all the money away at once?

He didn’t want to write a check to an organization — he wanted something more personal. “But I get their point,” Sandridge said. “If I gave $3,650 to one person, I could probably change their life.

“Maybe I’ll do that next year!” Then he laughed. “I’ll need a good job, first.”

Monday, October 19, 2009

Free Hugs




The man behind the latest YouTube sensation has spoken out for the first time about his global cuddling controversy.

"It's a way to make people smile," Mann said.

"For every person who gets a hug, you see five walk past with a smile on their face."








A simple hug can really change a persond life...I think what he is doing is wonderful. More people should try it :)

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Motivation: Life=Risk



Received this on my Facebook today: If you haven't seen it yet...It really makes you think. How many people took a chance and did not listen to the words of others...They didn't let people hold them back with your negative tongue...Believe in yourself...Know that you are special and you can do anything you set your mind to. Just never give up!!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Paid In Full


A young man was getting ready to graduate college. For
many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer's
showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told
him that was all he wanted.

As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited
signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally, on the
morning of his graduation his father called him into his private
study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine
son, and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son
a beautiful wrapped gift box.

Curious, but somewhat disappointed the young man
opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible. Angrily,
he raised his voice at his father and said, "With all your money you
give me a Bible?" and stormed out of the house, leaving the holy
book.

Many years passed and the young man was very successful in
business.
He had a beautiful home and wonderful family, but realized his
father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go to him. He
had not seen him since that graduation day. Before he could make
arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had
passed away, and willed all of his possessions to his son. He
needed to come home immediately and take care things.
When he arrived at his father's house, sudden sadness and
regret filled his heart.

He began to search his father's important papers and
saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With
tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. As he
read those words, a car key dropped from an envelope
taped behind the Bible.
It had a tag with the dealer's name, the same dealer who had the
sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation,
and the words...PAID IN FULL.

How many times do we miss God's blessings because they are not
packaged as we expected?

~Unknown Author