The Little Red Hen

There is a children’s story entitled The Little Red Hen.  In this story, a folk tale of probable Russian origin,  the Little Red Hen finds a grain of wheat and asks all of the farmyard animals to help her plant the grain, and none of them are willing to do that.  After the wheat has grown it is time to harvest the grain, and again the Little Red Hen asks for volunteers to help her with this task, and again there is no willingness to help.  After the harvest the grain must be threshed to separate the chaff from the wheat and then of course the process of milling the wheat into flour.  An again at each phase no volunteers are forthcoming.  Finally the Red Hen is ready to bake the bread and one last time she invites the other farmyard animals to help and once again they say ‘No”. 

Finally, the Little Red Hen has finished baking the bread and asks, “Who will help me eat the bread?”  Unlike all of the other times, the farmyard animals are all willing to be eager volunteers.  But this time she declines the help and says that since they were not willing to help on the front end they wouldn’t be able to benefit in the end.  So she and her chicks ate all of the bread, leaving nothing for anyone else. 

As is mentioned in the wiki about this story, “the moral of this story is that those who show no willingness to contribute to a product do not deserve to enjoy the product.”  You have an opportunity to get in on the front end of the process of helping youth leaders to develop the skills they need to be a positive and effective role model and mentor for youth.  Join us at Entrusted Legacy by logging onto our website at www.entrustedlegacy.org and making an investment in the future.  

Many Hands Make Hard Work Light

What do hands, synergy and recycling have in common?  How do these three distinct things connect. 

When I was young, my mother used to tell my sister and me, “many hands make hard work light.”  We knew that those weren’t her words originally, I’m not sure how, but we got the message.  She expected us to work together and help each other out whether that was folding clothes, weeding the garden or doing the nightly dishes.  Many times she joined her hands with ours to make the work lighter for all of us. 

Steven Covey would share that we need to work together to synergize and not only make hard work lighter but change the face of the hard work altogether.  He believed that by working together, working to understand one another we created a space for something better that any one of us could have thought of on our own.  He labeled this notion as Habit #6. 

I would also like you to consider the whole notion of recycling.  Fifty years ago people may have saved things but it was not because they were interested in recycling but rather because many of them had lived through the Great Depression and learned that is was best to throw away nothing.  However their children (the Baby Boomers) learned that the world was disposable.  Evidence of this can be found in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which stretches for hundreds of miles and have formed a nebulous, floating junk yard.  However, as our consciousness was raised, recycling hit most everyone’s radar and it is challenging to throw anything away that we think might recycle.  You find “blue cans” regularly, even in cities that require you to pay for the privilege of recycling.  The notion of many hands applies to this as does the notion of synergizing to accomplish something you couldn’t do on your own. 

Now it seems to me that out-of-school time should want to be the “next recycling” effort.  Imagine what would happen if everyone understood that afterschool programs are as essential as recycling.    What if everyone understood how important role models and mentors are for the youth who spend time in the afterschool programs?  What if everyone understood that if everyone does a little, what we end up with is a lot? 

Please join us in making a difference. Contact us at www.entrustedlegacy.org or at support@entrustedlegacy.org