That is what Kevin Salwen did. He tells his story in the Huffington Post. Here is a taste:
Let’s start with this: We know our family’s decision looks a bit nutty. After all, how many families listen when their teenage girl insists they sell their house and give away half the money to charity? I’ll admit, our project sounds goofy, impetuous, perhaps even irresponsible.
But that’s what we did. One day in Fall 2006, as we were stopped at a familiar intersection a mile from our Atlanta home, our then 14-year-old daughter noticed a beautiful black Mercedes on her right juxtaposed with a shabbily-dressed man asking for food on her left. Recognition turned to anger turned to action: At Hannah’s urging to help shrink the disparities between the haves and have-nots in our society, we sold our dream house, moved into one half the size and began to give away half the proceeds to help people halfway across the planet.
Now, 3 ½ years later, we are cheering as the subsistence farmers in Ghana are transforming their lives from poverty to self-reliance with the help of The Hunger Project, a New York-based nonprofit. And we are marveling at how our family has changed too.
My favorite question since we started this family journey is one we get often: “I understand why a 14-year-old girl would become outraged about the world’s issues and why she would ask you to sell your house … (There’s usually a pause in here, an unspoken ‘this may sound tacky.’) But, why would you as parents agree to do it?”
My wife and I have debated that question, and we’ve concluded that our actions fit neatly into these two buckets: The concept of abundance and the emotion of love.
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