1 + 1 + 1 = Impact: How small gestures make a big difference

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“I’m only one person. How can I make a difference?”

When faced with a big problem, it can be hard to see how small gestures could change the world. One light bulb, one art class, or one tree planted might not be enough to stop global warming or transform a community, but what about one thousand? Or a million? When you add up the small efforts of billions of people around the world it can add up to a big impact. (Here are a few photos of Earth Day 2012 from around the world.)

To show off this idea, we teamed up with other nonprofits and community organizers around Seattle to gather hundreds of people together for a single day of volunteering and community celebration. Along the Duwamish River, 1,068 volunteers rolled up their sleeves on April 21st to help clean up Seattle’s polluted waterway.

 

It’s amazing how much work can be done when we work together.

Nature Consortium, together with EarthCorps, hosted half of those volunteers in the West Duwamish Greenbelt adjacent to the river. Our 530 volunteers were split into 20 different groups to spread out our impact. In one corner of the forest, volunteers cleared out a huge area of Himalayan blackberry in just under 2 hours. The before and after photos show the dramatic transformation. 

 

Meanwhile, in our Youth Art Program, students spent the week engaging in environmental art projects at our Yesler Terrace and Rainier Vista sites. At Yesler Community Center, youth worked to tend the organic garden and participate in environmental art projects. Throughout the year, our art classes serve over 2,200 youth. We each 2-hour class, we work toward inspiring a generation of artists, creative thinkers, and community builders. Our site coordinators, teaching artists, volunteers, and interns all work together to make this possible.

This week offers another opportunity for people to make a big impact. The Seattle Foundation is holding its second annual GiveBIG, a single-day online charitable giving event to inspire people to give generously to nonprofit organizations who make our region a healthier and more vital place to live. When you donate to Nature Consortium through the GiveBig website on May 2, they’ll use funds from GiveBIG sponsors to match a percentage of all individual contributions. The more we raise, the more they’ll match. Last year, individual contributions for GiveBIG added up to over $3.6M raised for nearly 1,000 nonprofits in just 17 hours. That’s a big impact in one day, and with your help we can make it even bigger.