Washington, DC was covered in snow the other weekend. Roads, driveways and sidewalks were blocked all over the capitol of the United States. Amid this mess, D’Arcy Williams saw an opportunity to help. So he grabbed his snow shovel and by clearing driveways for his neighbors he raised $1,800 USD to help refugees resettling in the US. This is a true global citizen.
According to a report in the Washingtonian, D’Arcy Williams began brainstorming ideas with his friends on how to raise money to help refugees a few months ago. Their brilliant idea was “Shovels for Refugees,” an initiative where D’Arcy and his friends would take to the snow-filled streets during after a storm and ask for donations from people in return for having their snow cleared away.
This brilliant plan hit one snag: it just wouldn’t snow. But as D’Arcy told the Washingtonian, “be careful what you wish for.” When it finally snowed in DC, it really REALLY snowed. And D’Arcy was left with only one of his friends, Sanam Aghdaey, to dig out of their home and get on the road to helping refugees.
Once the team was able to get out, they quickly found support in the neighborhood. While clearing away piles of snow as high as 6ft (that’s 2 meters for the metric crowd), the pair earned donations that never dropped below USD $75. D’Arcy told the Washingtonian that while most people were willing to shovel their own driveways, as soon as they heard what the money was going toward everyone was “very keen to help.” Of course, getting someone to remove snow was probably also pretty attractive.
The money raised by D’Arcy and his friend will go to the local office of the International Rescue Committee to help settle refugees in the United States. “A lot of the attention that the refugee problem gets is from the atrocities that are happening overseas and what the refugees are fleeing, but people don’t realize that a lot of the struggle is really far from over once they move to another country,” D’Arcy told the Washingtonian.
D’Arcy’s own background is fascinating. According to the article, the DC resident grew up partially in Ghana and eventually studied international development at McGill University in Montreal. A global upbringing indeed.
He hopes the actions of “Shovels for Refugees” will raise money but also serve as “a way to stand up against the anti-refugee rhetoric that’s been going on.”
It also shows that individual efforts can collectively change the world. If everyone takes initiative to help like D'Arcy--whether online or in-person--then significant change can happen.
D’Arcy found a creative way to raise money. In his mind “the opportunity to raise money for a good cause is literally falling from the sky.” The world is full of opportunities to make a difference we need to just dig in (or, in D’Arcy’s case, dig out) and commit to making that change part of our daily lives.