In a world often defined by self-interest, we at Casa de Sueños are blessed to witness the love, compassion, and generosity of people who care about giving to others.
Our donors spread God’s light and hope to the poor children and abused young women of Medellin. We are grateful for the extraordinary spirit of giving embodied by those who support us.
The spirit of generosity that inspires us is demonstrated in these uplifting quotes about giving:
Anne Frank was a young Jewish woman living in Germany when Hitler came to power. The family went into hiding in a backroom office “annex” in her father’s warehouse in 1942. Non-Jewish friends smuggled food and supplies into the Frank family and four other Jews.
Sadly, informants turned them in, and the annex was raided by the Gestapo in 1944. Anne and her family were transported to Auschwitz, where her mother died. Anne and her sister, Margot, were sent to Bergen-Belsen where they died of typhus in early 1945.
Anne Frank is known for the diary she kept while confined to the “annex.” In it, she talked of her dreams of being a journalist or a writer.
Secreted away for two years hoping to escape the unfathomable evil around her, she wrote these hopeful words in her diary:
“I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at heart.”
Mother Teresa was an Albanian nun who settled in India and founded The Missionaries of Charity. She felt a calling from God to minister to “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone.”
Throughout her lifetime, Mother Teresa helped establish The Missionaries of Charity in 133 countries, cared for orphans, gave comfort and aid to lepers, and ministered to thousands of the poorest people in India.
She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
If you were an adult in the 1990s, you probably remember the little book with a plaid cover called Life’s Little Instruction Book: 511 Suggestions, Observations, and Reminders on How to Live a Happy Life.
Jackson Brown, Jr., who worked in advertising in Tennessee, wrote down these snippets of wisdom and presented them to his son when Brown and his wife dropped his son off for his freshmen year at college. Already an author of two small volumes, “A Father’s Book of Wisdom,” and “P.S. I Love You,” Jackson’s advice to his son somehow got the attention of a small Nashville publisher.
The rest is history.
Jackson’s little book sold more than 7 million copies and was translated into 33 languages.
His reminder that the happiest people are the ones who give more than they get still rings true.
Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during WWII. Along with Franklin Delanor Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, Churchill helped develop a strategy that the Allied Powers used to defeat the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan.
Churchill was a powerful statesman credited with hundreds of profound and often repeated quotes. While the quote above is widely attributed to Churchill, there is no clear evidence that he actually said it.
The truth of the statement keeps it alive, regardless of who might have said it!
Maya Angelou was born Margurite Johnson in 1928. Her brother gave her the nickname of “Maya,” and during her life, she adopted a form of her husband, Tosh Angelos’s name, “Angelou.”
When she was only fifteen, she wanted a job. To get one, she applied numerous times to be a streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Her persistence paid off. In 1943, Angelou became the first African American woman to act as a conductor.
Angelou toured professionally in Europe as a calypso and cabaret singer and dancer. An actor, director, producer, and civil rights activist, she is best known, however, for her poetry and her writing. Her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, chronicles the sexual abuse she suffered but focuses on her survival. The book has sold over a million copies, giving strength to thousands upon thousands of women.
Awarded 30 honorary degrees from all over the nation, a postage stamp presented in her honor, and the Medal of Freedom in 2010, Maya Angelou remains a beloved figure in American Literature embodying hope, resilience, and compassion.
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