Our Pay It Forward Program is finally catching on [at least locally].
Besides the donations you will read about within this article, I have a major donation I would like to thank my anonymous donor for. This morning when I opened my door to go outside, I found two huge boxes filled with books, collectibles and odds and ends, a small note indicated: “I like what you are trying to do. I hope this will help with the venture. Good Luck!”
What can I say? This is just one tiny way someone has chosen to Pay It Forward. Local persons can enjoy the books by going to the book swap table; to view the items, check out our eBay site. Whoever my anonymous donor is; May God Bless & Keep You!

Due to our county’s fiscal problems, many programs that local persons have become accustomed to are either no longer available or are threatened with extinction. The town I reside in is a rural hamlet; there is basically nothing for the area youth to do. We have a small town park locally and an exceptional county library four miles away. The county parks will not be opened this year, and our libraries are being threatened.

With the threat against the library, there will be little for our area youth to do besides loiter and get in trouble; this is something no one would like to see happen. Rather than allowing the further downfall of our youth; I requested, and was granted a small spot at the local post office. I sat up two tables, filling them with a variety of books. The adult table requires that an adult leave a book to take a book. We have begun a book exchange.

While the adult table seems to see a variety of books coming and going; the children’s table has much greater activity. My grandchildren went through all of their books and donated them to the project. Additionally, I have received many coloring books, comic books and youth activity books via government and religious agencies. There is no need for a child to leave a book to take one; they are encouraged to take whatever books they want. I am having difficulty keeping their table filled.

Recently, I had a donation made for the children’s table. A seven year old wanted to donate her Leap Frog Learning System to the children’s table so that another ‘little girl’ could learn to read like she did. After a discussion with the child and her parents, we have decided that the best way to utilize this donation would be to add it to our eBay program.

We are going to place the item on eBay. Once the item is sold and the money has been received [and of course, we are assured that the purchaser is happy with the purchase] we will take the proceeds and purchase used books. This seven-year-old is a huge fan of the Junie B Jones series and we have [without her knowledge] decided to purchase a few Junie B Jones books for her to thank her for her unselfish attitude and reward her for her kind deeds. The rest of the books will be placed on the table at the post office so that other children will benefit from her donation.

I would also like to tell everyone that I have had a request from a person to assist them with reading. The person lives an hour away from me; but we are attempting to set up a program so that I can assist him with his need to become a better reader.

In other Pay it Forward news; I have already had request for fresh vegetables from my container gardening project. In fact, those who have made the requests have also decided to take their request a step further, adding a Pay it Forward mode. They have salvaged seeds from the vegetables they have been purchasing at their local supermarkets and dropped them off for me. This, providing that I manage well with the container gardening could definitely turn out to be a win-win situation.

The container gardening has already brought joy to two youngsters who had been fretting over not having something for their mother for Mother's Day. The youngsters picked the plants they wanted, I wrapped containers in aluminum foil, transplanted the plants and allowed them to write their message on the container. We then went to the computer and helped them to design and print their own cards. The tinyest things can mean the world to a child! Please, always remember that.

I received a bag of like new clothing to use for this program. The donation was made by a local individual who has asked to remain anonymous; although she did request that the net proceeds be used to furuther the reading program. Again, these items will be sold on ebay. I am astonished by the response we have gotten to not only this program, but also to our general idea on how we should proceed with our life. [Read about it on the A Day in the Life of.... page.] All I can say, is that my faith in the human race has been renewed. I hope that we prove to be wonderful leaders for all. Thank you so much to my readers, to those businesses who have chosen to sponsor this site, to those who have donated goods, and offered advice. May God Bless All!

Pay It Forward started as an idea for a book, which was released in January of 2000. Since the book’s release, a real-life social movement emerged, not just in the U.S. but worldwide. The Pay It Forward Movement is the real-life reaction to the novel; shortly thereafter the Pay It Forward Foundation was created. Later that same year, Warner Bros released the Pay It Forward movie.

It is an easy concept; do a favor for another person without any expectation of being paid back. Instead, request the recipient of your favor do the same for someone else: ideally for three other people. The unconditional favors can be large or small, as long as the person you are doing the favor for has no expectation of having a favor done.

As you can see, my favor was to set up a local book exchange program. Since that time, a seven-year-old has picked up on the program and donated Leap Frog Learning System to sell so that more children would have access to books. It may seem a small thing, and it may not be moving quickly, but it is moving and people are doing for others.

Now, I would like to challenge all of my readers to participate in a pay it forward adventure. I will even make it easy for all. Simply do one favor. I will even help you with some ideas. Omce you have completed your favor [please remember you cannot expect anything for doing the favor] request the recipient of you favor do a favor for three other people, and request that each of those people do a favor for three other people, and on and on and on...

Please, let us know about the favor you did and have the recipient of your favor tell us about their favors. Email: reallyfreeny@yahoo.com put pay it forward in the subject line.

So let's see if we can get the largest Pay It Forward/ Friendship Organization on Earth! Make sure you let us know what you have been doing and how things are going for you. Send an email to reallyfreeny@yahoo.com