This will make you believe that we CAN make a difference when we give a child the gift of our time.
A young family moved into a house next door to a vacant lot. One day, a construction crew came in and began building a house on the empty lot. The family's 5-year-old daughter became interested in all the activity going on next-door and spent much of each day observing the workers. Eventually, the construction crew, all of them gems-in-the-rough, more or less adopted her as a project mascot.
They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they took coffee and lunch breaks, and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important. At the end of the first week, the men presented her with a pay envelope, which contained $2.00.
The little girl took this home to her mother, who said all the appropriate words of admiration, and suggested that they take the money she received to the bank to start a savings account.
When they talked to the bank teller, she was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had earned her very own paycheck at such a young age. The child proudly replied, "I worked last week with the crew building the house next door to us."
"My goodness gracious," said the teller, "and will you be working on the house again this week, too?
The little girl replied, "I will if those assholes at Home Depot ever deliver the fuckin' sheetrock."
