July 28, 2009

Out of the Mouths of Babes

So there's this girl named Phoebe. She lives in San Francisco. And this year, she helped raise enough money to feed more than 17000 people.

And she's five years old.

Apparently Phoebe was being driven to preschool one day and saw a homeless person outside her window, begging for money to buy food. She asked her teacher about it and her teacher explained what some would call the facts of life: Some people don't have anywhere to live. Some people don't have enough to eat. Some people don't have any money or property or Barbie dolls.

That explanation should be enough to bring tears to anyone's eyes, and thoughts of action to anyone's mind. The extraordinary thing about Pheobe is that she did take action. The five-year-old started a campaign to collect cans in order to collect the accompanying five-cent deposits. She wanted to reach a goal of one thousand dollars earned. (In five cent increments! One thousand dollars!)

She ended up reaching a grand total of $3736.30, almost quadruple her original goal. Since a few good Samaritans from the area were kind enough to offer to match her funds, Phoebe's efforts led to a total of almost thirty-four thousand dollars in food being donated to the San Francisco Food Bank.

And Phoebe is only five. I mean, if your heart isn't touched by this story, shouldn't your pride be rattled? A five-year-old can raise thirty-four thousand dollars to feed the hungry in only a few weeks! Shouldn't we as adults be able to do ten times more?

Out of the mouths of babes oft times come gems... Let's follow Phoebe's example, because her story sure is a gem.


To see a video of Phoebe and the people who helped her along the way, follow this link:

http://www.gnn.com/article/preschooler-feeds-nearly-18000-with-cans/592963?icid=webmail|wbml-aim|dl6|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnn.com%2Farticle%2Fpreschooler-feeds-nearly-18000-with-cans%2F592963

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