Beyond Three Cups of Tea

We often hear that it only takes one individual to make a difference and affect change. But do we really believe that we can be that individual? I have been guilty of thinking, I’m just one person. I can’t change the world.

Or can I? There are plenty of people who have proved that one person can make a world of difference. And on a rainy Tuesday morning in Provo, Utah, Greg Mortenson proved it to me.

A Promise
Mortenson, bestselling author of Three Cups of Tea, was guest lecturing at Brigham Young University. For those unfamiliar with his book, as I was, it is the story of a mountaineer turned humanitarian. After a failed attempt to climb K2, Mortenson found himself dangerously ill. He was taken in and sheltered for several weeks by the small village of Korphe in Pakistan. And there, the story of one man making a world of difference begins.

In this small village, he watched as a group of eighty-four school children—seventy-nine boys and five girls—worked diligently to complete schoolwork as they sat on the frosty ground. They had no building to call school; a teacher came to teach them only a couple of days a week. Yet there they sat, scratching their work in the sand with sticks, trying to gain an education. Mortensen recalled, “When a young girl came up to me and said, ‘Could you help us build a school?’ I said, ‘I promise I’ll build a school for you.’ Little did I know that it would change my life forever.”

Building a School
When Mortenson flew home in 1993, he began the process of raising $12,000 to build the school he had promised. He wasn’t sure how to begin, so he decided to send out letters to celebrities. From 580 letters, he received only one check for a grand total of $100. He continued working and saving. Then in 1994 his mother invited him to visit the elementary school where she was principal. As he prepared to leave, a fourth grader named Jeffrey approached him and said, “I have a piggy bank at home, and I’m going to help you.”

Mortenson said of the experience, “I didn’t think anything of it. What can a fourth grader do?”

But six weeks later, the children had raised 62,340 pennies.

“It wasn’t celebrities. It wasn’t adults. It was children reaching out to other children halfway around the world,” he said.

With the students' donation, Mortenson felt his luck was beginning to change. He was able to raise the full amount needed to build the school in Korphe, and it was completed in 1996. Since that memorable day in the village, Mortenson has spent 16 years working in very rural, often volatile, areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, including approximately 75 months in the field, in order to bring schools and education to the children there. To date, he has helped build more than 90 schools throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pennies for Peace
After the experience with Jeffrey and his fellow students, Mortenson started the program Pennies for Peace. In 2008, the service-learning program was in 278 schools around the US. In 2009, that number has grown to 4,450 schools. The program encourages kids to get involved in local organizations and to go out and do something on their own.

And kids are making a big difference. Here are some of their stories, shared by Mr. Mortenson.

Little Red Wagon Foundation
Eleven-year-old Zach, from Tampa, FL, participated in Pennies for Peace for two years. When he was eight, he was bothered by the fact that there were homeless kids in his own community. So he created the Little Red Wagon Foundation to help raise awareness for homeless kids in the US. He started by walking from Tampa to Tallahassee, collecting donations along the way. This year, he completed the “My House to the White House Walk,” raising $74,000 for his cause. Next year, he hopes to raise one million dollars by completing his coast-to-coast walk.

Peruvian Hearts
Sixteen-year-old Ana Dodson is originally from Peru. Left an orphan when her mother died, she was adopted at age three by American parents. Anna participated in Pennies for Peace at age twelve. After visiting an orphanage in the city where she was born, Ana was determined to help. She started Peruvian Hearts, a nonprofit organization aimed to provide orphans with education, clothing, food, and hope for the future. Today, her organization does that and more.

A young man who went for a climb, a boy who went for a walk, and a girl who visited an orphanage all prove that individuals can make a difference in the world. I can make a difference in the world. It just takes one promise, one step, one school, one person at a time.