Photo Above: Women are taught how to prepare food from what they already have at home in a more nutritious way to improve their family’s health at the Baptist Medical Centre in Nalerigu, Ghana. [NIKON D2X, Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC, Mode = Aperture Priority, ISO 400, 1/20, ƒ/2.8, (35mm = 75)]

I spent a good chunk of my life releasing myself from the anxiety monster.

But lately, a creepy little monster called ‘Am I Making a Difference’ has surfaced.

The beast most often haunts me at night when I am about to fall asleep. I put my head down on my pillow, spent from the day, and I wonder: Am I making a difference? Is anything I’m doing helping anyone?

When I took photos of news events, I knew I relayed what happened that day to the audience from my front-row seat.

Most of my career has been documenting first-world issues. However, throughout my career, especially the last ten years, I have spent more time in the Third World writing their problems. I am using the term “Third World” as shorthand for poor or developing nations.

My first trip to Africa was in 2005. For the first time, I saw how used liquor bottles were repurposed for many things. One is using them to sell petro by the side of the road. There were few gas stations, so business people would fill bottles and then resale them on the side of the road.

I saw firsthand how people survived with no electricity and no cupboards full of food like we have here at my home in Georgia.

I was able to go to the hospital to see the care being provided by just two doctors.

I later went to the Chiapas region of Mexico to do a story on coffee farmers. Due to roasters underpaying them for their coffee for years, many came to the states to work in our communities to support their families back home. Telling their story, we were helping them to return home and be prosperous by selling their coffee at fair prices because they were able to form a cooperative and, through a nonprofit’s help, buy a roaster that made them competitive. My purpose was to spread the story so more farmers could join the cooperative.

I was privileged to tell their supporters the success story of Honduras Outreach Inc. We put together a video that was played when the President of Honduras came to Atlanta to present them with an award for all they had done to help the Agalta Valley in Honduras.

Here is the video I did for that event back in 2014.

Last year I was privileged to go to Togo, West Africa, to help tell the story of a hospital built in the 1980s with no improvements since then and was in significant need of upgrades and expansion to meet the needs of that community.

Here is the video I did for that project:

I don’t know how much money was raised due to my work through the years. I do not know how many people’s lives were touched, and I felt a call to help others because of the stories I have helped to tell.

One of the biggest stories I am documenting, which most everyone is doing, is that of my family story.

I would say that the most crucial story I am capturing is one of my own family’s milestones.

We all go to each other’s events to celebrate with them. They become part of all of our lives.

I am always asking, “Did I make a difference today?”

I hope so, but we don’t always know the impact we make on people. So getting a note from someone telling you how you are making a difference is enormous.

During the Pandemic, I started an online Zoom meeting for communicators. I call the group FOCUS [Fellowship of Communicators Uniting Socially].

I got a note from one participant saying, “First off, I would like to thank you for this great fellowship group.  I am enjoying it a lot.  I feel like I am being watered like a plant and not drying up like I would if I was completely alone.  Such a good group of people with great talent.”

So I do think I am helping someone.

Earlier, I got this note from another group member: “Thank you for hosting a great discussion again today. I am humbled to be involved and grateful for the substantive topics and questions you and others raise. I find it personally stimulating to hear the depth of the dialogue. This has been missing from my career for a long time.”

We are wired to serve one another, but I also believe we need affirmation, which helps us know if we need to modify our efforts to make a difference in this world.

“Wherever you are in your life, show up. Generous, confident, engaged.”

Stanley