Who You are Makes a Difference

A teacher in New York decided to honor each of her seniors in high school by telling them the difference they each made. Using a process developed by Helice Bridges of Del Mar, California, she called each student to the front of the class, one at a time. First she told them how the students made a difference to her and the class. Then she presented each of them with a blue ribbon imprinted with gold letters which read, "Who I am Makes a Difference!"

Afterwards the teacher decided to do a class project to see what kind of impact recognition would have on a community. She gave each of the students three more ribbons and instructed them to go out and spread this acknowledgment ceremony. Then they were to follow up on the results, see who honored whom and report back to the class in about a week.

One of the boys in the class went to a junior executive in a nearby company and honored him for helping him with his career planning. He gave him a blue ribbon and put it on his shirt. Then he gave him two extra ribbons and said," We're doing a class project on recognition, and we'd like you to go out, find someone to honor, give them a blue ribbon so they can acknowledge a third person to keep this acknowledgment ceremony going. Then please report back to me and tell what happened."

Later that day the junior executive went in to see his boss,who had been noted, by the way, as being kind of a grouchy fellow. He sat his boss down and he told him that he deeply admired him for being a creative genius. The boss seemed very surprised. The junior executive asked him if he would accept the gift of the blue ribbon and would he give him permission to put it on him. His surprised boss said, "Well, sure."

The junior executive took the blue ribbon and placed it right on his boss's jacket above his heart. As he gave him the last extra ribbon, He said, "Would you do me a favor? Would you take this extra ribbon and pass it on by honoring somebody else? The young boy who first gave me the ribbons is doing a project in school and we want to keep this recognition ceremony going and find out how it affects people."

That night the boss came home to his 14-year-old son and sat him down. He said, "The most incredible thing happened to me today. I was in my office and one of my junior executive came in and told me he admired me and gave me a blue ribbon for being a creative genius. Imagine. He thinks I'm a creative genius. Then he put this blue ribbon that says 'Who I am makes a difference' on my jacket above my heart. He gave me an extra ribbon and asked me to find somebody else to honor. As I was driving home tonight, I started thinking about whom I would honor with this ribbon and I thought about you. I want to honour you!

"My days are really hectic and when i come home i don't pay a lot of attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for not getting good enough grades in school and for your bedroom being a mess, but somehow tonight, I just wantrf to sit and, well just let you know that you do make a difference to me! Besides your mom, you are the most important person in my life. Your're a great kid and I love you!"

The startled boy started to sob and sob, and he couldn't stop crying. His whole body shook. He looked up at his father and said through his tears, "I was planning on comitting suicide tomorrow, Dad, because i didn't think you loved me. Now i don't need to."

.. Helice Bridge ..

~.~

After reading this, I was like wow! Being me ... i am inspired to start my own adventure. Yea. Helice Bridge has her own blue ribbon acknowledgement ceremony - aka blue ribbon project. Well there is another yellow ribbon project going on in Singapore to support the movement of accepting ex-convicts into the society. Well i am starting my own! Errrr lemmme see. I shall call it Jason's Orange ribbon project. Well orange to me signifies ... warmth ... friendship. Tat's to me ... dun start arguing with me what orange really signify. And so please please be apart of this movement. Its not about me. Its actually more about you. Here is how it goes.

>> Jason's Super Orange ribbon project <<

A very simple act. It follows just the same as Helice Bridges system of showing that "You make a differnce!" Well for this blog. Just tag a message (1) *orange ribbon* and insert yr (2)*email* in my tagboard and i will forward you a simple orange ribbon message of my very own. You will know more when you try.

I am going to start this off in my cell group :). Hehe .. hope this will be fun and successful. It is definitely a meaningful movement. =D. Seeing how the boy got impacted at the end of the chain really touch me =P I shall see how this goes ....