Making Time to Change the World

Life sometimes plops opportunity into your lap and you are left with the decision to act on it or spend time and energy on other things. Our specific journey into service was unexpected and when we began, we had no idea where we would wind up. We will talk about that later in this book, but first we want to explain why we are writing this instead of spending all of our free time doing those things that teenagers like to do.

We are writing this book for you, not us. There is nothing we gain (except royalties, fame and maybe a spot on the Today show). Seriously, though, this book is intended to inspire people. It is a message to people of all ages, but particularly teens and even those of you on the cusp of the teen years. It’s not a call to action, but rather encouragement to act. It’s our story from beginning to end and the message that everything that we and you do has an impact on others. Understanding the power that we each possess to change the world is the first step in getting involved. After that, knowing how to seek out and handle the vast opportunities that exist for service are the keys to your success.

Now we will tell you the specifics of what this book is about and hopefully you’ll keep reading! You should know that even if your teacher or guidance counselor or parents make you read it, we think that by the end you will be glad you did. And, it could really change your life, not to mention the lives of others.

We already told you that this book is meant to inspire you. But, what good is inspiration if you are left with enthusiasm to do something positive and have no idea how to find a project or how to carry one out. We came upon our project by chance and, actually, we were not even looking for one. After we began to work on it, we had the encouragement of a lot of people, but ultimately were left to figure out the path to our goal on our own. Some of what had to be done was obvious, like taking money out of our savings to buy bulk candy and water and selling it at exorbitant prices at school and community events to raise money. Other things, though, like writing grant proposals, needed a lot of research. Even finding out who to send the proposals to was a chore in itself. So, think of this book as a blueprint or guide map for service. Because our project involved large-scale fundraising, we will talk specifically about that, but there are many types of other projects we will address, as well. We are pretty confident that you can take the information we provide and easily adapt it to whatever direction you decide to go.

So, in a nutshell, after we do our best to inspire you, we will tell you how to carry out your plan. Along the way, we will try to entertain you a bit so you’ll keep reading instead of tossing the book aside, and going back to whatever else you love to do in your spare time.