“Real Kids, Real Stories, Real Change” and “Real Kids, Real Stories, Real Character” by Garth Sundem tell of over sixty young people from around the world who had significant positive impact. Eight-year-old Omar Gallegos walked 800 miles to a rain forest in Mexico to protest that 50,000 species a year that were becoming extinct as the rain forest was destroyed. His crusade led to a meeting with the President of Mexico who was convinced to save the rain forest.
When Alexandra Scott was four and fighting childhood cancer, she opened a lemonade stand in order to raise money to help doctors pay for cancer research. She set a goal to raise one million dollars. When she died at the age of eight the lemonade stands that had been created raised close to $1.5 million dollars.
Sixteen-year-old Kevin Curwick was concerned about the Twitter cyber bullying in his town in Minnesota. His idea to combat that was to create a Twitter account and start tweeting nice things that were happening in his town. Within a week all the negative Twitter accounts were shut down. When students came back from summer break the next year the whole school had been transformed into a much more positive, less exclusionary place.
I am very lucky to be able to provide personal examples of individuals over fifty who are having a very positive impact because of the program I created for individuals over fifty.
I met a ninety-three-year-old woman who is still working part-time as an education consultant and has taken on as her cause helping individuals who are her age and older deal with the aging process. I met another woman in her eighties who had to go to a shelter when a hurricane knocked out the electricity in her town. When the lights went back on in her home and she could have left the shelter, she said she wanted to stay because she was having a good time even though she was sleeping on a cot. Her personality had a positive impact on me and everyone in the course.
One person in her fifties had begun doing stand-up comedy to help people deal with the negativity that surrounds them, another had become a dancer in her sixties to create positive energy for herself and others, and others in their eighties and nineties were doing part-time paid or volunteer work in residences where they lived, for nonprofit agencies etc. I heard the story from one of the class members of a friend of hers who is one-hundred-four years old who puts on sheer stockings every day because “You never know when a gentleman caller will appear.” She explained that person has a positive impact on everyone she meets because of that attitude.
Here is a resource that might interest some readers. Aging Activisms http://agingactivisms.org/ “ is an intergenerational meeting place for a passionate group of academics and activists who are taken up with the daily struggle of creating a fairer, more compassionate, and more sustainable world. As a virtual community, we welcome new collaborators, participants, and friends from anywhere in the world.”
I am a quote guy and here is one that opens my book on having a positive impact: ”It is never too late to become what you might have been.” Mary Anne Evans, pen name-George Eliot
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Have a healthy and positive day and life, Peter Prichard, CMF
-WEBSITE/BLOG- https://havepositiveimpact.com/
-AUTHOR – the International #1 Amazon Bestseller and Readers’ Favorite 5 Star Award Recipient – “Have a Positive Impact During Uncertain Times” – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732793808 –
Readers Favorite 5 Star Review stated, “If you want to make a difference in the world, but don’t know where to start, or want to make a difference in your own life, but don’t know how, this book was written for you.”