We asked ONE members for submissions to The Big Read book — a collection of stories from people around the world supporting education for everyone. Although only one member story will be published in the book, the runner-up submissions, including the one below from Thad Collins of Coralville, IA, were so good that we wanted to share them here.

You can show your support for The Big Read and help ensure a pathway out of poverty for children around the world. Endorse the book by adding your signature here.

Thanks for reading!

-Emily Stivers

My Education from Educating My Children

By Thad Collins
Coralville, IA

Being a parent of wonderful, healthy, and thriving children has now made it impossible for me not to be part of ONE.

I live in Iowa — the heartland of America and launching pad of many political stories. The sun rises here over houses filled with families that enjoy the simple things: abundant food (in fact too much); unlimited clean, hot and cold running water; and a pediatrician one phone call away for a sick child. Most of us, and certainly I, don’t want to think that these simple things (hum-drum facts really) are only a distant or impossible dream for millions in this world. It is not that we don’t care, but we have enough stresses and challenges without thoughts of such daunting realities.

Forcing ourselves to acknowledge the gut-wrenching fact that parents in Africa routinely bury their children — victims of extreme poverty and disease — is a horrible thought we understandably want to avoid. To confront the full reality that such soul-piercing tragedy is only part of the story — which includes surviving children living in physical conditions far worse than jailed murderers face in this country, and often without any parents at all in the home because AIDS killed them both — really seems too much to embrace when, like most, I feel maxed out by the stress and demands of my life.

Now imagine trying to explain this downright mean and ugly reality for millions of children in our world to your own blessed and privileged kids — and then try to explain how we are too busy to act on it. I did just that and received, in return, my own education that almost forced me to be a ONE member.

As soon as I started to explain some of this cruel reality, my children’s faces immediately foretold their response: “This is not real, it can’t be, it’s not possible. How could an 8 year old raise a 5 year old with both parents being dead? We would never allow that. How could someone not have clean, hot and cold running water? They could turn the faucet on or call someone to fix it. How could kids starve? There is food everywhere, we are even being taught to stop eating so much.”

Our kids had to see to believe. When we showed them footage of this reality on the internet and news shows, it almost felt mean-spirited — taking away their innocence. But they really wanted to see more. So as a family we watched Oprah’s show about the lives of kids she built a school for in Africa. My children sat silently, riveted for the entire show. At the end, their eyes said it all the most piercing way. “How can this go on? How come others don’t do more to stop this?”

The definition of injustice was as plain to them as it will ever be. It was also stunningly plain that they simply refused to turn their eyes away and just say that’s too bad. They wanted action. “Why don’t we adopt some of these kids? Send food to them? Go build houses and wells for them? We have to do something! Don’t we?”

My children’s reaction made it clear our house needed to be taking a stand, but it did not change the reality we faced. We were still too busy, our budget still too stretched, and we still had no space in our life for such a huge undertaking. We were not hard-hearted or uncaring — but really, what could we do about this massive, complicated problem on the other side of the world?

But we also knew that we had reached the point of no return. We had set the ball in motion and had to find a way to do something.

Enter ONE, which happily uses even those tiny amounts of time and energy we have. The premise of ONE was (and is) for everyone to join and just do a little. No one needs to push the boulder up the hill alone, but we all chip in and push together. Involvement really requires only: joining an online community, signing petitions to support campaign goals for presentation to world leaders, and occasionally calling political representatives to support issues. If you really wanted to increase involvement, you could wear a white armband and talk about ONE and its goals. ONE fit and accounted for the frenetic pace of modern American family life. The simplicity and organization of the ONE’s approach made it impossible to claim I am too busy, too stretched, too broke, or too anything to be involved.

I have no great pride in my own minimal effort on behalf of the world’s poor and their largely unseen suffering. My own children’s pleas for doing the right thing led only to the absolutely minimal action I have given through ONE. But in this case, that minimal action has produced real and important reaction from those in power. Presidential candidates have stopped to answer my questions. A very senior and powerful US Senator hurrying out of an event stopped in his tracks and provided me full attention when I showed him my armband and identified myself with ONE.

My small voice and presence standing alone was unknown (if not a bit unimportant) to any of the Presidential candidates or that US Senator, but it was given a multiplier of millions by ONE. All the voices and emails added together have made a huge difference.

Now a simple flash of a white armband and the speaking of one small voice is something significantly more than itself. While I am not particularly proud of my own small effort, I am proud to look my children in the eye and say I am one member of ONE.