Pay it forward. That was the essence of a comment made by a reader of the Arizona Republic who read the article about our successful partnership with The Phoenix Theatre on Sunday. Just as a recap of the event, I will summarize that we had our impressive educational ambassadors and handlers at the Theatre before the performance of The Quiltmaker’s Gift, the story of a young king who learned from the quiltmaker that the more he gave away the happier he became. After the production the kids and their families were treated to the release of two rehabilitated Harris’ Hawks back into the wild. For those interested in participating, money was donated to either the National Wildlife Federation or to Liberty Wildlife (no relationship to them) and a plush toy was donated to Andrea’s Closet at St. Joe’s Hospital.
So, in reading the comments from the on line article I asked my fellow Liberty Wildlife friends what the comment “pay it forward” meant….I clearly am lacking in pop culture and didn’t see the movie of the same name or recognize a term that has become a part of the culture. I was educated!
During the day I thought about the comment and how true it was. I also thought about how much I like the strategy as it is pretty much how I have tried to live my life. A few slip ups are out there, but we all need to grow, right?
The notion of “Pay It Forward” is to give with out expectations of receiving anything in return. Rather, the notion is for the recipient of the gift from you is to gift on to someone else with the same expectation of receiving nothing in return and on and on and on. This is similar to casting a pebble into the pond and watching the concentric circles impacted by that one action to broaden and move outward hopefully to infinity. What a great notion, idea, action.
I tried to apply this idea to the event to see where the commenter was coming from. For me the gift will be to the kids at St. Joe’s who will receive a great toy, supplied by the generosity of someone who’ll get nothing back from the kid….the child might never know where the toy came from, but they will know the joy of cuddling a plush toy of their choice when the cards they were dealt weren’t so good. For the hawks that we released…..they never looked back..…no thank you from them, but they’ll raise a family, do their thing, and give back through the balance. For the Theatre folks, they will see the good will generated by their marvelous production….the critical lesson learned about giving to those less fortunate. To me, as a representative of Liberty Wildlife, I will take away another intrinsic blessing and that is the look in a young boy’s beaming eyes as the snake wraps around his arm….a primitive and necessary experience to insure the whole tapestry of our world for future generations.
Yep, I am definitely a believer in the Pay It Forward philosophy of giving. Give with no restraints, give from your heart, give because it feels so darned good!
1 comment:
It's always so inspiring to read posts like this! Thanks for the donations to NWF and I wish Liberty Wildlife all the best!
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