DAY 77 – COMMUNITY BETTERMENT PROJECT

Later today I will be graduating from college. When I look back at my four years here I can see how I have changed.

While I did get a great education and will be going into the world and working at a job that I wanted to do since I was ten years old I never expected to be part of something so much bigger than myself when I first came to this school. During my freshman year our entire school embarked on a project to help one another have fewer problems in life. This didn’t just pertain to the students academic concerns but also to every facet of the students life. This quickly morphed into the lives of the faculty and to every other college employee.

At first we focused our attention upon having a common purpose to be there for one another to help every student have academic success. Our campus website had a link where a student could post a request for someone who could help them with a particular problem they were having with a specific subject. There was always someone who responded back that they could help online or in a one on one meeting on campus.

Group meetings were also scheduled where students showed up to help other students who were having academic problems. While we included faculty members to be part of these meetings we did not see what was coming. One day a professor decided to share her life story with us about being verbally and sexually abused when she was a teenager which still haunts her to that day. The students started to give her advice and encouragement.

While discussing that teacher’s mistreatment when she was younger and the advice being given by those of us who are younger we came to realize that age is not required to contribute to making someone’s life better. We knew that we did not have to wait until we become 30, 40 or older to positively affect someone’s life. We, the young, have the ability to change anyone’s life for the better and we can do it now.

A movement of “How Can We Do More” quickly spread through our campus. Groups were formed where students could talk about personal issues concerning their family, dating, health difficulties, financial distress or anything else that was of a personal nature. There were separate meetings where students could get together to try and do something about issues on a global scale such as violence, the environment, poverty, hunger, war or any other problem that may be facing human beings around the world. We began to see ourselves as living our lives based upon having one common purpose of working together for a better future.

Helping one another on campus took on another life of its own. We came to understand that our two thousand student body lies within a city of twenty-five thousand residents and workers and if we are to live in a better world every person in that town has to have fewer problems just like the students at our school. Many of the students, including myself, found ourselves going into town and finding out what we could do that could have a positive impact upon the lives of the people who lived and worked in that town. A “Community Betterment Project” was born.

We decided to send fifty students into town to tell the residents and workers that we are starting a “Community Betterment Project” throughout the city in order to help them have fewer personal and community wide problems. We asked them for any suggestions they may have about how we should go about doing this as this is their town and we did not want to impose ourselves onto their lives.

One store owner said that if we could get twenty-five percent of the twenty-five thousand people in this town to volunteer just four hours each month to make their town a better place for everyone it would mean we would have twenty-five thousand hours of people’s time each month devoted to community betterment. This opened our eyes to how much good could come from just four hours a month of service to one another on a community wide basis.

When we went back to school we made flyers about how four hours a month can change a community and went back into town to distribute it to stores around the city. We got so much positive feedback from the residents and workers that we knew that our “Community Betterment Project” would be received with open arms. We then had to think about how we would go about doing this on a larger scale with more detail than what we were doing on campus.

Most of the students at our school are 18 to 22 years old. While we are still young we have made mistakes in our lives that we wish didn’t happen. We realized that our primary goal should be to reach children as young as possible so they can have some insights into life at an earlier age so they do not think and act in ways that create unwanted problems for themselves, others and the earth. We also understood that our other goal should be to have adults understand that their problems can be prevented or quickly resolved with more insight into why those problems occur.

Doing this on a city wide scale required passing on to the people of the town a few important concepts.

1) Human life can be broken down into nine basic requirements for a better life and better world. The problems everyone has to deal with are related to these nine requirements and when people in their town focus their attention on achieving these nine requirements there will be fewer personal and community wide problems human beings have to deal with.

2) A “Better Life Philosophy” that states I will make life better for myself, others and planet earth will give us an overarching belief system which people can unite around. Having the young, as well as adults, come to believe in “A Better Life Philosophy” will give them the basis for how they can judge whether their thoughts and actions enhance life or cause problems. Hopefully, people in their town will then act in ways that create a better life for all of their citizens.

3) When people in their town come together and decide to have one common purpose of working together for a better future it means that people in this community are united in eliminating the problems that people have. There is no “us” and “them” just the collective we of every single person in this town.

4) Human beings live our lives based on the thoughts that each of us have. These thoughts are just the silent words that each of us say to oneself. Many of the problems a person has is the result of silent words that bring about those problems. Many societal problems are the result of the silent words that are part of a community that brings about those problems. By understanding which silent words create difficulties and which silent words lead to a better life and better world we can help one another to have the type of thoughts that enhance life and prevent problems from developing.

5) When we reach out to the youth of this town we want to help them to look at life in a holistic manner so they can better understand how their thoughts and actions have a ripple effect upon their own lives, the lives of other people and the earth. When we deal with adults we want them to understand that their difficulties may be nothing more than habits of thinking and acting that have been built up over time. For every human being the long term effect needs to be of concern just like the effect it has at that very moment.

There are many beneficial consequences to a city wide “Community Betterment Project” where people work together for a better future for everyone. I now realize that such a project will give the young a sound and solid foundation upon which they can live their lives. I also realize that a project that strives to help all of its members to have fewer problems will unite people in their community and as time goes on and other communities engage in a similar project it can eventually unite the world.