Starting Small - Despite "Just Right" Conditions

Today is December 2nd, 2025 and happens to be Giving Tuesday this year. I've been aware of the day for at least a decade, but it hasn't been around much longer than that. A quick search tells me Giving Tuesday only started in 2012.

This post I'm writing today is mostly for my future self, to serve as a reminder of the importance of starting things even when they feel small or not quite ready (according to my own visions in my head of how it "should" have gone).

I've been thinking about writing more, but it has mostly been thinking and not doing. I have been thinking about Giving Tuesday this year and had wanted to have my HelpEndHunger.net site more developed with a pledge form that I could officially launch on this day.

The demands of work, for my day job, pulled me in so much this past weekend, and especially today, that I almost forgot it was even Giving Tuesday. Definitely no website development or pledge form created and no elaborate plan for a significant donation I could make to be the very first pledge.

The truth is, I have been pledging my time and money and food to help feed others since I was a young child and told my grandmother I would like to take some food to a homeless person I saw on a street corner. Of course, I wanted this new idea and effort of having a site and pledge form for others to join in to be kicked off at a time when I felt it was ready to go and that I could make the first pledge feel special (at least to myself).

In a scramble to get off work in time to get to my son's basketball game I had forgotten that I arrived to work with my empty tank light on and certainly not enough gas to get back home. I rushed to the station just before the freeway on-ramp to fill back up.

It was then that I also realized I hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning (over 8 hours earlier) so I ventured into the gas station convenience store to get something to eat. Gas station pizza doesn't normally sound appealing but to a hungry stomach it was calling to me.

When I scanned the barcode at self-checkout and prepared to pay, a little message popped up on the screen asking if I wanted to donate to Feeding America (a great organization helping in the cause to fight hunger). I still hadn't given it much thought and quickly pushed the "Round Up to Nearest Dollar" button which was only $0.26 for my donation.

I paid and didn't even request a receipt. It wasn't until I got back to my car and started my 30-40 minute drive home that I had more time to realize this was my opportunity to start my first official pledge for my HelpEndHunger.net site. Not a big multi-digit donation that was well documented with receipts and pictures and plans and preparation for weeks in advance. Not a big fancy story of how I went and found someone in need in the most amazing and inspiring way. The only witness of this moment was myself, choosing to round up my purchase to $4 with a small fraction of that total going to a charitable cause.

And yet, this is exactly how I want to start a project that I am committed to for the next 41 years or more of my life. This is exactly the article I want to go back and read for myself several decades from now to remember that I didn't keep waiting and waiting for the conditions to feel just right or ready. It started with a small $0.26 donation that was unexpected but is so true to who I have become as a person and the daily small opportunities I look for to make a difference.

About 6 years ago I made a goal to start looking for coins on the ground for a different project I was doing to help raise money to feed hungry kids in my home state of Utah. I remember finding 3 pennies on the ground and posting about it on social media and stating it would be cool if I could find 40 pennies over the next 5 years as I worked toward my event goal.

Little did I know, I would end up finding several thousand pennies! Including hundreds of quarters, dimes and nickels, along with hundred dollar bills and other paper money. The collection is well over $500 now, of money I've found on the ground outside of my home, literally all over the country and around the world.

I continue to save these coins and this money in a special jar to remind me of the impact of small things accumulating and growing into significant things! Each year I've made a matching donation of the current amount I've found so the money collected isn't just sitting in a jar without making an impact today.

Only a few years in and my total donations are close to $2,000 and I intend to keep this going for the next 40 years or more of my life. I imagine by that point the total donations will have reached the tens of thousands of dollars!

I don't share this to boast or set myself up as an example of charitable giving. It's a point of fascination to me of how my journey of finding 3 pennies on the ground turned into something so much more than I ever could have imagined!

So back to today. This article isn't the most polished article. I'm typing this up from the heart after a long day with no intention to have AI proofread it or run it through several other family and friends before I post it. Again, this is almost like a journal entry for my future self to reflect back 41 years from now and say "Wow! Look at what that small donation of $0.26 put into motion!"

For anyone else who may stumble on this article, I hope it inspires you to act when you feel prompted to act regardless of how small the action may feel to you and despite your personal judgment that the conditions weren't "just right" for what you envisioned or hoped.

Sincerely, 

Jarom