A NEW NAME

23 years ago I used to listen to my wife teaching our four boys about the power of a small stone upon still waters. "Drop a pebble in the water watch its ripples grow. That’s the way when we love each other ever one will know.”
The power of our actions and what happens to us in life are beyond calculation. Sow a bad seed and you have a weed. Plant good seeds and you have a garden. In your hand you have a pebble, your next action. It is a small thing. Be loving or be self-centered, very basic choices. It is a little thing, but like a pebble it effects your moment, your day, and your life. Long after the pebble is released and has disappeared into the water the ripple expands until it touches the shore. So too, are the actions of our life.
I have been thinking of names for this organization for the last six months. Alternate names in case “Seed of Hope” was used elsewhere or if there might be a better description for this work. Legacy, Footprints, Seed of Change have all be considered. There are all good names with good ideas. Since “Seeds of Hope” is being used already and I have decided on “The Ripple Effect,” and feel it conveys both the hope of this organization and my life.
In June 2006, during the memorial in Gig Harbor for my son Forrest, some of you who were there will remember I told the story of my wife’s “Ripple Lesson”. The pain was still raw with our son’s life cut short. There had been a huge splash in the pond and we were caught in the waves. Looking over the crowd of friends, I asked them to take the effect of my son on their life and continue to let it live through them. Latter that fall, when I open a check that Megan, Forest’s wife, gave me from his life insurance policy I knew I wanted to continue the ripple. I was given $10,000 dollars ,10,000 ripples and began looking for a way to help the poor in Guatemala. Since that time the ripple has grown.
Today with under $28,000 invested we have;
1.) A well in Afghanistan for a village of 500
2.) A cattle program in Chel Guatemala that this summer will reach 40 cows
3.) A water system for 105 people in the village of Xesalli
4.) A co-op of 104 widows receiving thread for weaving or raising a piglet for sell.
5.) A food program for 23 of the most needy of the widows.
6.) Six micro-loans to help families gain a decent living
7.) Two plant nurseries and a garden program for 67 families
It is time to become an official non-profit!!
I am also excited to announce that we have a board of directors. Shirley Anderson of Tacoma, who has been very active in Habitat for Humanity and Karen Elam of Gig Harbor who has a background with humanities work in Latin America. Most importantly, both have a big heart. I am the third member. We have hired a company to file for international non-profit status and are incorporated in the state of Washington. We have a team of six dependable leaders in Guatemala to manage field work. In all we have an opportunity to make a change!
This month we presented our work at Imagine Great Things a fair trade store in Gig Harbor that is selling weavings from the widows. I will sponsor a dinner at my home in the middle of October and would like to have series of sponsored dinners in the fall. If you are interested in hosting one please let me know. I am seeking opportunities in Churches, Clubs, and small organizations to share the plight of these people and ways to help. Please by all means help me make these connections. We have already applied to two international organizations and have started contact with a third. I believe this work is a gift. So many things have gone well and I am walking in places that I am amazed at. I did not set out to start a non –profit organization but when I saw the need of the Ixil people and the successes we have attained I cannot stop. This ripple has grown. I ask for your support. We will stretch, twist and elongate every dollar through the sweat equity of the Guatemaltecans and creative programs, but I need your help.
My desire is to bring water to two more villages, build a school, start a collective farm for the widows, fund three more coffee nurseries, and begin a sheep program . Every visit sparks more ideas and open doors. And these programs are working. For example the first year I spent around $7,000 to buy 22 cows. This year I will only spend around $600 to help continue it and they will buy 40 cows. Sylvester who has a micro loan of $300 for a freezer has earned enough money last year to buy a mattress , add a bedroom to his house and start a second business and his loan payments have bought books for the school children in Chel Please join in, help sprend the word and watch this ripple grow,