The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
'One good deed leads to another'
by: Derrick Henry
April 18, 1998
Ordinary people can make an extraordinary difference.
That's the message Marianne Larned manages to capture in "Stone Soup for
the World: Life-Changing Stories of Kindness & Courageous Acts of
Service" (Conari Press, $ 15.95), a compilation of 100 inspiring stories
of people helping others.
Publication of "Stone Soup for the World" this week coincides with
the observance of National Volunteer Week, a celebration started 25 years ago
by President Richard M. Nixon. "My primary goal was to show that there is
something each one of us can do," says Larned, who spent three years
compiling the stories. "I wanted readers to be exposed to the goodness in
the world and to have people they can look up to as role models."
For example: Isis Johnson saw a photo of starving children on television. Only
4, but wanting to help, she went door-to-door with her grandmother, asking
neighbors to donate food for hungry children in New Orleans. Before long their
home had became a small warehouse of food and supplies. Isis had found her
calling. Now 13, she continues the war against hunger through her own
foundation, the Isis T. Johnson Foundation in Memphis. Will Morales, an
illiterate gang leader and felon, changed his life after his brother was shot
to death. He learned to read, formed a group called X-HOODS, and helped create
the Urban Edge Youth and Police Partnership, bringing together inner-city kids,
the police and the church. It was the first outreach program in Boston's
history run by teenagers. Today, X-HOODS organizes crime watch programs in
troubled neighborhoods. Arn Chorn spent four years in a child labor camp in
Cambodia, witnessing the urder of thousands of children by the Khmer Rouge.
Escaping into the jungle, he was rescued in 1979. As the first Cambodian orphan
permitted entry into the United States, Chorn shared his story at the United
Nations, before Congress and across the nation. He helped create Children of
War, which today assists young people who have been touched by violence.
"I wanted stories ordinary people can read and say, 'If they can do it, I
can do it,' " says Larned, who created and heads the Stone Soup Foundation
in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., a nonprofit educational organization committed to
empowering youth to become leaders in building a better world. Her hope is that
through teamwork and cooperation, ordinary people can make dramatic differences
in the lives of people who are struggling.
"One good deed leads to another," Larned says.
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