Author: Dan Zadra

It’s one of the world’s most demanding and creative jobs. The days are long, sometimes extending all through the night—but there’s no paycheck, stock options or vacations.

It requires a wise mind, a patient hand, a gentle touch, a strong will, a huge heart, and a well-tuned intuition.

It involves leadership, art, cuisine, education, recreation, transportation, psychology, medicine, maintenance, entertainment, pediatrics and economics.

Anyone who can handle all that, and do it year after year with a smile in her eyes and a song in her heart, has to be someone very special.  She is.  She’s your mother. Continue reading →

Today you may be the answer to someone’s prayer.

Dr. Jo Blessing tells of an elderly patient who experienced a minor miracle in her life.

Despondent over the death of her only son, the old woman tidied up her apartment one morning. On her nightstand she sprinkled out the sleeping pills. Then she trudged to her favorite place, a little park on the corner, where she sat alone feeding the pigeons, and summoning the resolve to end her life.

At noon something happened that changed her mind. Along came a young man in a business suit and tie. He was about the same age as her son, and he appeared to be in a hurry. For no apparent reason, however, he suddenly stopped, smiled and asked politely if he could feed the pigeons with her. When he left, he touched her arm and said good-bye. “Take good care of our little birds,” he laughed. “Next time I’ll bring the bread.” He had no idea that his kindness had restored her will to live. Continue reading →

Doing good for others has its own arithmetic.

Service to others has its own arithmetic. Combine two or more goodhearted people in the pursuit of a common cause, and suddenly one-plus-one is more than two. Alone, we can all do a little something, but together we can do something truly amazing.

If we all use the arithmetic of service, there isn’t a problem in this world that can’t be solved. The hard part is convincing each person that their individual efforts, no matter how small, play a significant part in the total equation—that each of us has something to give which cannot otherwise be given—that we all contribute a crucial factor in the multiplier effect.

5 Hours a Week: Using the arithmetic of service one person can help change the social landscape of our country in a few hours a week. How? If every American donated just five hours a week to volunteering for a cause, it would equal the labor of 20 million full-time volunteers.

 4 Hours a Month: If every employee in every American company were given just four hours a month to volunteer for a cause of their choice, American companies could transform thousands of neighborhoods and millions of lives. Continue reading →

Love like this can never die.

In the blue-collar neighborhood where I grew up lived an old Italian couple named Polly and Menta who loved children, sunflowers, Italian music and each other.

Right there in the middle of our concrete city, Polly and Menta had cultivated a lush green vegetable garden, complete with hand-split bean poles, trellises, Italian fig trees and tomato plants, two rabbits, three cats, five chickens and a raggedy old rooster that could barely crow. The whole neighborhood liked that rooster, and we loved Polly and Menta.

Menta was short and quiet, with big hands, gentle brown eyes, and a perpetual smile. He wore flannel shirts, red long johns and faded bib overalls year ‘round. Polly was taller, straighter and more outgoing. Like the big yellow sunflowers in their garden, she had a sunny disposition that lit up our neighborhood and our lives. Continue reading →