Matthew Marek/American Red Cross

This is a call to the living,

To those who refuse to make peace with evil,

With the suffering and the waste of the world.

This is a call to the human, not the perfect,

To those who know their own prejudices,

Who have no intention of becoming prisoners of their own limitations.

This is a call to those who remember the dreams of their youth,

Who know what it is to share food and shelter,

The care of children and those who are troubled,

To reach beyond barriers of the past

Bringing people to communion.

This is a call to the never ending spirit

Of the common man, his essential decency and integrity,

His unending capacity to suffer and endure,

To face death and destruction and to rise again

And build from the ruins of life.

This is the greatest call of all.

The call to a faith in people.



— Algernon D. Black, former senior leader, New York Society for Ethical Culture

Help the victims in Haiti