Toastmasters Help Feed Starving Children

From Betty Liedtke, ATM-S, who organized a group of Toastmasters to package food for starving children as her High Performance Leadership project:

To everyone who took part in or contributed to the Feed My Starving Children event on Monday:

You are my hero!!!!

Thank you SO MUCH for being a part of this. I can’t tell you how grateful I am, or how excited I am with how well the whole event turned out. It was a rousing success in so many ways, and exceeded all my expectations. (And I have to admit, I had some pretty high expectations!)

First and foremost is the total of 12,096 meals that we packed, which will feed 33 children for an entire year! In addition to that is the generosity of so many who made monetary donations, which will help FMSC to feed even more children.

For me personally, it was so gratifying to see so many people there (the official count was 72!), and to know that you were there in support of a very worthy cause in feeding the—literally—starving children of the world, but also to help and support a fellow Toastmaster. I know that a few of you traveled a great distance, and some of you changed other plans and rearranged your schedules in order to be there. How can I ever thank you for that??

It was also so enjoyable, simply from a social standpoint, to spend a little time with other Toastmasters outside of a meeting setting, and to chat with Toastmasters from other clubs and Areas as well as to meet each other’s families and friends. There was a lot of talking and laughing going on while we were working. But hey, just because you’re doing something noble and generous and kind and selfless, who says you can’t have fun in the process?

It was a joy for me to meet so many of you for the first time as I visited different clubs to talk about this project, and the new friends I have made—as well as the ones I’ve gotten to know a little better—provided an additional bonus in working on this project. But the most satisfying and gratifying part of all is knowing—from comments and emails I’ve already received—that many of you were affected by the event the same way I was when I first learned about FMSC and worked my first volunteer shift there. And that is in wanting to tell others about it, to come back again to pack food, and to bring others along as well.

On that note, if any of you organize other groups to work a shift at Feed My Starving Children, please let me know. I would love to join you!

Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart. You have made such a difference in the lives of thousands of children. And in mine.

Always,
Betty