Pay It Forward

So about ten years ago a movie starring Haley Joel Osment, Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt hit the theaters.  It was called Pay it Forward and the premise of the movie is young Trevor McKinney (played by Haley Joel), troubled by his mother's (Helen Hunt) alcoholism and fears of his abusive but absent father, is caught up by an intriguing assignment from his new social studies teacher, Mr. Simonet (Kevin Spacey). The assignment: think of something to change the world and put it into action. Trevor conjures the notion of paying a favor not back, but forward--repaying good deeds not with payback, but with new good deeds done to three new people. Trevor's efforts to make good on his idea bring a revolution not only in the lives of himself, his mother and his physically and emotionally scarred teacher, but in those of an ever-widening circle of people completely unknown to him.

In a scene from the movie Trevor explains his plan to his classroom;


As those of you who follow this blog know, I do a lot of my best thinking when I'm riding my bike.  Last week I wrote about a dear friend of mine who has been stricken again by that omnipresent monster cancer.  She is a great teacher and choreographer but unfortunately she doesn't have health insurance to cover her treatments.  On Sunday another friend of hers organized a conference call for people to try and brainstorm how to help raise the $85,000 she'll need for treatments.

If you're reading this you probably know that I am currently looking for sponors to help underwrite the costs for a cross country cycling trip that I want to do to raise $50,000 for Sunrise Day Camp.  All my own fundraising efforts (and those of my amazing wife Amy) have been going into trying to raise the money we are going to need to accomplish that task.  We don't make a lot of money as I'm a public school teacher and we are a single income family.  If we did make more money we wouldn't be needing these sponsors so badly, but we don't so we do need these sponsors in order to make this mitzvah project a reality.

However, while I was riding in this morning and reaching my usual state of flow, I began thinking about my friend and what she needs in order to beat this @#$@ disease and I started sobbing.  As I was feeling the tears freeze on my cheeks something became very clear to me - I'm alive for a reason.  I know I often make light of the day I made God laugh but the reality is had any of a couple of dozen things gone differently that day I wouldn't be alive right now.  One of the doctors in the ER told us that she had seen many similar accidents in her ER experience in the city and most of the cyclists ended up breaking something (collar bone, arm, ribs, neck) and at least three instances she remembered ended up with the cyclist dying. 

The memory of that day and what could have been went through my head as I was riding and I thought "God kept me alive that day for a reason, and maybe this is it."  You see, I went back and forth with the insurance company for about two months in regard to my personal injury settlement.  I originally didn't even know I was entitled to one (I've never really been in an accident before, surprise, huh?) but the claims adjuster mentioned that I would be eligibable for a personal injury settlement in one of our initial conversations.  To make a long story short, we "negotiated" to the point where the insurance company paid me a good amount of money for my "pain and suffering", not a lot mind you, but more than I make from my stipends for my after school theatre program.

I won't lie to you, times are hard and some of that money went to pay taxes and bills.  We are going to use a small portion of it for the trip and that leaves just a little bit left over.  Yes, times are hard and my family could use the money but I think one of the things I'm supposed to do with it is to help a friend in need.  Right now, she needs the money more than we do and it is time to perhaps serve one of the purposes for which God has kept me alive - paying it forward.  If it helps her to be able to stay around longer with those of us who love her (even if we don't get to see her) then the reason for my accident is clear - it is so I can help others.

And so I shall.  It is my greatest Christmas wish that more sponsors step forward and help us raise the money we need to be able to do CAXC (Connor's Army Cross Country) and help eight more children and their families.  We're going to pay it forward and hope that others can help us by doing the same.  AS I mentioned on Friday, Jason Lederman put up a great PSA as part of Project for Awesome 2010 that you can access by clicking here or just watch this:


Thank you Jason from the bottom of my heart for this and for believing in Connor's Army.  It really means so much to my family and to myself!

I know there are at least a few of you out there who follow this blog.  At last count we had 47 followers.  We could really use more to follow us and show potential sponsors that we have people that pay attention to us.  But more importantly, PLEASE help our Christmas wish come true, help us pay it forward to kids whose families are really struggling in these economic times.  Unlike my friend, they may not have others who can step forward and help them with thier financial need and they need us to find the money so they can be normal kids for a summer.  If each of us can try to reach out to three people and those can reach out to three more and those can reach out to three more and each of those can raise just $125 in sponsorships for us together we can all come up with just enough to sponsor CAXC and make a difference!

So what do you say my friends?  Can we pay it forward?  Every little bit will help!

Stay well, and I'll see you on the road.