After Midnight – The start of the MDY3

At midnight sharp begins MDY3

And if you have not started – well start!!!

 

To kick things off, listen to the very talented Scottish Rocker Maggie Bell singing After Midnight….

And with reason, I will actually be up at midnight my time and talking over the airwaves in Scotland – Edinburgh to be exact…. (I will post the link to the radio station on Twitter!)

See Moving Difference is over there as well, there are a bunch of people (last number was 2000+) that are kicking off Moving Difference by an entire day of volunteering for various charities….

and I hear that they have a pile of questions, laughs and stories to tell me and everybody listening…. it should be a great time….

 

What is happening after that you ask, well, depending on the time, I am going for a little 8 mile walk and then the MDY3 staff takes over and everybody is out and about in several different states helping at a food bank, pet shelter, homeless youth safe place and a children’s hospital – until roughly 5pm and then we are going to drop in on some people that inspire us too with some cookies and cards- either nursing home or veterans homes or the hospital before going home to see all the emails about what you lovely people did on the first day of MDY3!!

 

 

It is only fitting that the first day of MDY3 is a 24 hour day for me, I wouldn’t have it any other way…. 🙂

 

Until the clock strikes, midnight, – be good to yourself….

 

 

It is Saturday morning at 12:20 am – Good Morning!

By the light of the crickets, I write this entry to you.

I am so proud of Moving Difference, its vision was a 1000 hours over a summer, we did 5700+ the first three weeks.

After a few hours here tonight, I can tell you the number has gone up.

Moving Difference is now 6421 hours completed as a Moving Difference.

There are still a few hundred emails to open but we will get there and we will get them logged.

I wanted to share one email with you this early morning though. It is what this project is all about. I have tucked it below for your reading. I just want to say this about life, once you think you have seen it all, think again.

This world is a wonderful place.

The email:

“Dear Jeny,

The Moving Difference fever struck our house this week! I am reporting our total family hours for the week as 26 and 26 soccer balls donated to Orphans of War Campaign. We encouraged our children to join us in a few activities and for every hour they did, we told them we would purchase a soccer ball for charity. Jake and Stacy really thought it was cool, and we went to Academy last night to get the soccer balls. The kids were so excited they explained what they did to the clerk, who called the manager who give us the soccer balls at a discount. Then informed our children that for the rest of the summer, every hour they did on the Moving Difference project, he would purchased the soccer balls for them to ship to the charity. Needless to say our house is a buzz for next week, the kids have planned themselves into 40 hours!! I am sure that you will have a few more folks helping out in the days ahead – the kids are telling everybody!!

Thank you for this wonderful summer family project. ”

Pretty cool huh?

In the moment –

By all counts, Moving Difference is a working success. It is less than a week old, it is steady and strong and making the impact on the world.

            I have read a lot of emails over the last week, thousands actually. Every one excited to share, wanting to do something, or reporting what they have done. Each email is special and unique. From the guy that wrote to proudly report that he didn’t pass out when giving blood to the young woman in the different country asking if it was okay to do a Moving Difference inTurkeywith her friends. Amazing emails, simple and beautiful.

            To those of you still getting out there to do the Moving Difference or having a hard time selecting what to do, I firmly believe that you already know it in your heart.

Like Moving Difference for me, I really never thought “Hey I am going to put together Moving Difference and change the world.” What I thought was “Hey I am going to put together Moving Difference and do something besides complain about yet another hot ugly summer.”

Being a bit selfish in my thinking now looking back but I never thought it on such a huge scale that Moving Difference has grow to.

            Honestly I am glad that I didn’t think of it to the huge scale, because I probably won’t have done it. Hey! I am human – I would have worried, fretted and stall like everybody else.

            Now that Moving Difference is going and going to large numbers and going completely beyond what my little first thought was, well, it is a moment of awe.

            Sometimes you don’t get to choose the moment that takes your breath away, it chooses you.

First Sunset of Moving Difference

An idea that was first written on a burrito napkin has now become reality.

Today was the day that Moving Difference kicked off, the first day of summer and the first day of the simple concept of moving and making a difference.

There are hundreds of emails to go thru, people reporting their hours and people asking tons of questions – I promise I am going to read them all and report the hours on the Facebook site and of course here.

83.33 people (friends and family) doing 12 hours over a summer, 1000 hours was all I was hoping for. Now I am thinking I won’t be surprised if Moving Difference hits 10k in hours from all over the world at the end of the summer.  

Just today alone – I have emails reports in of over 55 hours of Moving Difference achieved inAustin,Texas– that is pretty amazing and some other good things happening too.

All together for the entire project across the world, it is about 154 hours of Moving Difference right now*** – and that all the read emails/voice messages so far – I still have about 200 emails to look at yet tonight and I am sure the total number is going up! That is the FIRST DAY !!

*** – Writer’s note – it took until roughly past 3a.m., but all emails were read and reported – Total number was 249 hours of Moving Difference..on its first day.

I am impressed! I am shocked! I am grateful! I even cried tears of joy!

Amongst the busy first day of Moving Difference, I did my first hour of Moving Difference. Making balloon animals at a local children’s hospital. My giraffes didn’t look right and my dogs were a bit too big but the kids had fun being critics of the unique world that is the art of balloon animals. Nothing makes you humble like a kid laughing at your attempts to make a poodle and it comes out looking like a pink digestion track with legs. Hey it is my first public attempt at balloon animaling… laughter is good medicine for those kids even though my pride was hurt!! *sniff sniff – smile*

I am still so thankful for the people doing this project – this is a great start!

I want you to know that Moving Difference is because of some really great people – you and your friends & family. It is amazing and wonderful to think that there are people like you out there.

This is the first of one many sunsets on this project

I’m looking forward to the big sunset on September 21, when no matter where in the world we live we stop and all watch that sunset together and enjoy an amazing summer of moving and making a difference together!!

I can’t say it enough – thank you.

I really thank you all for being part of Moving Difference. I am looking forward to the rest of the summer and looking forward to having more people join in this really amazing movement of moving and making a difference.

From the bottom of my heart – thank you for being amazing people! Thank you for being a Moving Difference.

All my respect and love,

Jeny