Directly after the devastation in Haiti, my friends and I decided we wanted to help. We got some cans together, put on our winter jackets and headed on down to Ste-Catherine's street in Montreal, QC. to raise money for an organization called Free The Children. We got a lot of help from the Montreal Free The Children office, they offered us posters and tees and gave us tips on how to approach people for donations! We stayed outside for 2 days and froze terribly but we totally enjoyed it and managed to raise 1427$ for Haiti!

The most amazing thing happened on the second day of our fundraiser and I want to share it here. As we were standing at our original corner, this homeless man walked up to us with his dog. His dog, whose name was Tina, was holding a Tim Horton's cup in her mouth to collect money from people. Upon seeing us, he stopped and asked what we were doing so we explained to him we were trying to help the people of Haiti by raising money. This homeless man, a man who has nothing in the world but his dog and the clothes on his back, took the cup of money out of Tina's mouth and dropped all his money into our collection tin saying "they need it more than I do".

I have never been more amazed/touched/shocked about an action as I was by this one. He stayed with us for about half an hour afterwards and joined in on our cheers to get people to donate. But this one action represents something amazing to me, the idea that one single act of kindness can change the world. This man might not have given much, he might not have had much to give, but he gave what he could and that money could have bought a starving child food, a dying woman medicine or something else just as important.

This shows me that no one is incapable of making change in someone else's life, every person can be a philanthropist and no one can now say "I am just one person, what difference can I make alone?" when this man did just that. This was one of the most inspiring moments of my life and it is what kept me going on that extremely cold day in the middle of January, the important of small acts of kindness.

If you would like to see some videos of what happened that day, take a look at these video logs!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rPmB7cQ6Vs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBtSrvslJpM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82GvZ7Uf79M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7IIPUJ1-ww