Funding a Heart-to-Heart Movement

Earlier in the year, I posted opportunities for people to contribute to my blog so that I could do acts of kindness for them here in India. A long while back I started spending more and more money. It started in transportation to and around different cities, visiting schools, etc., then in buying markers and paper for school kids to write friendship letters to kids in Pakistan, and then went on to fund thousands of dollars worth of “The World’s Largest Love Letter” and public service announcements. I operated with faith that by not holding back and moving forward into the beauty that the money would eventually follow.

Because of this faith that the money would come, I held onto the idea that I would keep the money that had come in through the blog for small acts of kindness instead of using it on this project. Some friends have come forward and helped out in very generous ways, but overall it’s not looking like we will find a big sponsor for this project. If you donated anything to me through this blog, it’s probably a good time to say that it has been invested into “a brand new approach to world peace,” and I feel very content knowing that your money was very well placed.

I heard recently that the American war in Iraq is costing $100,000 every minute. Do you have any idea how much money this is? And all it is buying is a whole lot of chaos and aching resentments that will take generations to heal. On their scale, the cost of our project may equate to about 15 seconds total, and I feel pretty confident that with just a handful of people and a network of support, we have accomplished much more. There were times on this project where it would have been very easy to stop everything as the costs became hard to bear individually – especially from someone who spends his life doing unpaid service work – whose wife earns money doing social work. But when looking at the comparative cost and seeing how much it would buy, it is a bargain of bargains, and to stop out of fear would be tragic.

This project has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and adults – probably now millions – throughout India and abroad and it is still very much growing. Its success cannot be measured by just the letters we receive, but in each and every child we have met, and the overall spirit of love and friendship that has gone out into the world. This truly is a recipe for a better world and where its ripples will reach, no one can know.

Thanks to each of you for trusting in me with your money and you need to know that in a very real way, it is your contributions that have helped make this dream a reality.

The expenses are still ongoing and if you would like for your money to be the money that made this happen, feel free to Join the Dream. :)

Photos by Maria Durana

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