“How do we change the world?  One single Act of Random Kindness at a time?”  

If you’ve ever seen the movie Evan Almighty, you would recognize this quote.  I like watching movies, especially ones that have a lot of quotable quotes in them.  And Steve Carell and Morgan Freeman do a very nice job accomplishing this together throughout this movie.

With Thanksgiving Day and the infamous Black Friday behind us, we still have Cyber Monday to look forward to.  Although in between this, we have something called Small Business Saturday trying to gain momentum and awareness for the little guys that can’t afford to give away their merchandise like the big boys.  I am all for small businesses and excited that there are people out there passionate about trying to help them out.  In my opinion, these small businesses deserve much more of our attention, and money.  All the big retailers had to start somewhere.  I’m pretty sure they didn’t become a big sensation overnight.  But why it’s just one big day of the year that we are trying to “show our support” to these small businesses, I’ll never know.  Maybe it’s just a mindset change that we don’t always have to go to the local “big boys” to find that perfect gift?  Or do people just not know where to find these local small businesses?

There is a saying I’ve seen by Anna Lappe that says, “every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.”  I think this be very interesting and can see it in so many different ways.  Every time I go let’s say out to eat some place, I am supporting their mission, values, and goals.  But I see it as also “voting” for my body to accept these foods, how they’re cooked, and their contents.  Same thing with where I go shopping.  Where you go buy your clothes, shoes, toilet paper, you are telling those retailers that you support them by buying products from them.  It’s the same thing in giving to charities or other organizations.  You give your money to them because you support their mission, values, and goals, probably because they line up with your own, and you want to help them to continue do what they do.  You support them by giving your money to them.  Giving them your “vote” that what they do, or aim to do, is the type of world you want to live in.

This year, we are involved in something new that calls for the Tuesday after Cyber Monday to be known as Generous Tuesday.  This is a day where we get to show the world what the season is all about by giving generously.  We’ve been using Pure Charity to help those smaller charities out to raise awareness and funding.  Since we’ve started, we’ve been able to help rescue a little girl in Cambodia from trafficking with an organization called Rescue Her.  Our next focus is getting funding to help educate refugees that have had to flee their countries and now live in the Dallas area.  This education helps them to live here in America, helping them find a job, a car, manage their money and time, and help empower them to live and solve problems within our American culture.  To view and help support this project, click here.

Through Pure Charity, we as individual consumers are able to shop at multiple businesses, both big and small, while also earning funds from them just for shopping with them.  We can then use these funds to help projects around the world, from organizations big and small, to do the good that we want to see in the world.  These retailers are empowering us to be able to “vote” for the type of world we want to live in, by giving back to us a percentage of whatever we spent with them to use towards projects that matter to us.  Projects that line up with our individual missions, values, and goals.  While not every small business is on the merchant list to be able to shop with using Pure Charity, my prayer is that they will be someday.  And I believe we could get there.

I completely understand that using Pure Charity to do your shopping can be a lifestyle and mindset change, especially when you are thinking that you have to shop and order things online to get funds.  We are instant gratification humans.  We want what we want right now.  Not 2 days from now, or heaven forbid 2 minutes from now.  We go through drive-thrus and get upset and impatient when we have to wait for the other car in front of us.  I mean, I just order 10 seconds ago…shouldn’t I have my food by now?  But if you change your mindset into what you are actually being empowered to do, it’s pretty powerful, literally life-changing, and a game changer to me.  You can use the power of your consumerism, order those things that you need or want online from a thousand different merchants, earn funds from them, wait those couple days for it to arrive on your doorstep, and turn around and give a family around the world clean water to drink, food for their table, an education, a little girls freedom from being trafficked, a future for a child when there didn’t seem to be one.  You can give HOPE.

Start now and build your ARK to change the world for good.

What are some of your missions, values, and goals?  How does this change your perspective on the world around you?  What are some of your ARK moments/ideas?  Would you join us in changing your view in how and where you spend your money?  You can sign up here for free.

Generosity is proof that our security is in God. Greed is proof that we are trying to gain security somewhere else.  Pastor Jimmy Evans

 

 

Photo source: Creative Commons on Wikipedia

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