What Can One Person Do?

I would like to make a significant difference, but I am only one person. It is difficult to imagine that one person could do something that would positively impact a large portion of the world's population. Politicians do. Scientists do. Pharmacological researchers do. Regular people do not. Regular people can help a neighbor or maybe even a neighborhood, but not thousands or millions of people.

When I think of someone who has made a difference for a large community, I think of Sylvia Lawry. She was a regular person who made a difference that is felt worldwide.

Her brother was diagnosed with MS and she did not know how to help him or what to say or what was going to happen or even what MS was. In 1945, after her brother had spent fruitless time and effort trying to find a cure for his disease, MS, she placed an ad in the NY Times looking for help from someone who had been cured. Just one regular person placing a classified ad - a simple action looking for an answer. She received many replies, but they were from MSers who were looking for the same answer. They hoped she had found the cure and would share the news.

She saw a need. The next 50 years of her life were dedicated to ridding the world of the disease that had attacked her brother and so many others. One ordinary person responding to a need that had touched her, transformed into quite an extraordinary person. Sylvia Lawry did it by founding the National MS Society (NMSS), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and the MS International Federation (MSIF). In 2001, the year Sylvia died, the MSIFcreated the Sylvia Lawry Centre for Multiple Sclerosis Research.

Because her brother had MS, she created a network for research and to provide information and support for MSers. She helped her brother and she continues to help the rest of the 2.5 million MSers around the world.
One person, touched by her brother's plight, influenced research, disease management, and public policy in her country and the world. Wow.

One of these days, when another woman like Sylvia places an ad for a cure, she will receive many responses -- with a cure developed because one person wanted to help and she made a significant difference.