Making A Difference

What did you do today that made a positive impact on the world?

It could be something small (like using good manners on the road) or something really big. But not a day should pass without leaving the world a bit better than when you first awoke.

I am always amazed with the ingenuity of young people who see a need in their world and undaunted by doubt or fear of failure, pursue a solution with great success.

Take Marni and Berni Barta. In 2002, these thoughful sisters founded Kid Flicks — an organization that provides movie libraries to pediatric departments around the country. Inspired by their friend who used movies as a way to pass time while undergoing treatment for Leukemia, the sisters realized that the movies they had outgrown could make a true positive impact to kids being treated at the same Pediatric Oncology Department of the Los Angeles hospital that had helped their friend. Their instinct was a good one, they discovered, as the hospital’s Child Life Specialist told them that “movies are the first things kids ask for when they are in the hospital.” This experience motivated them to collect as many movies as possible to donate to as many hospitals as possible. Thanks to solicitation letters, direct donations from movie studios and production companies, collection drives at schools, synagogues, other organizations, and individual birthday parties and mitzvah projects, as of January 23, 2008 Kid Flicks has donated 28,700 movies to 287 different hospitals throughout the United States and South Africa. It is their hope to provide every Children’s Hospital and Pediatric Department in the country with a Kid Flicks movie library.

I can’t help but think that when Peach celebrates his first birthday in April, there would be no better way to thank God for his health than to ask our guests to bring a DVD to ease the sufferring of other children. Peach wants for nothing. We’ve got toys galore.

These young woman serve as an example of Rabbi Tarfon’s teaching: “It is not your duty to complete the work. Neither are you free to desist from it.” (Pirkei Avot 2:16)