Somebody’s child
Child's Play x2 | May 3Somebody’s child needs help. That child doesn’t live down the street or across town or even across the country. No, that child lives a hemisphere away in a land that too easily leaves our consciousness as we flip through the morning paper.
Or this week’s Sports Illustrated.
You see, I savor my copy of SI. It comes each week and when it arrives, I read it from cover to cover. I start at the Leading Off photos and five or six days later, I end with Rick Reilly’s column. When you have twins, reading a full magazine is a luxury that currently does not fit into my schedule. So, as of now, I haven’t quite gotten to Rick Reilly yet for this week’s issue. Well, I got a sneak peek when Samantha, at Back to Me, posted Rick Reilly’s most recent column about 3,000 children a day (3,000 a day) who die of Malaria. Why? Because they don’t have a $10 mosquito net.
Please, go read Rick Reilly’s article. And if you are so moved, make that $20 donation. As I read that article, all I could think about was my own children and how somewhere in Africa, right now, a father - make that 3,000 fathers - are mourning over the death of a child. I’m sending my $20 so one more father doesn’t have to feel such an overwhelming sense of grief.
For more information about this look at:
http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/ or even surfing through other pages at the CDC site to see how very very lucky we are.
It always puts my parenting crisis in perspective. Sometimes knowing that your kid had TWO glasses of UNDILUTED juice in one day is not the horror we think it is.
I read that article last week too!
it move me to send in a donation.
All day I have been trying to put into perspective the number 3,000.
In like three weeks that would fill Coors Field. That is more children than live in my town.
My prayers and money are on the way.
I’m so glad that you wrote about this, spreading the word further. In spite of shows like “Rx for Survival,” there’s still not enough attention paid to the simple and cheap steps like this that we take to save children. You inspired me to finally write about ORS, which can, for 10 cents apiece, save kids from a killer that’s twice as deadly as malaria. (Mama also read this and passes along her thanks. Publicity like this helps immeasurably in their work to save kids.)