Hero of the Week: Laura Stockman

By Dan Estabrook - November 6, 2008 Our Hero of the Week, Laura Stockman, started a blog in honor of her grandfather last year.  The 12-year-old from upstate New York created 25 Days to Make a Difference, where she performed a charitable act every day during December 2007 and chronicled it for her readers:

Albert Stockman was my grandpa. He loved helping other people, and he believed that everybody could make the world a better place, not just by doing big things, but by doing small things too! My grandpa once told me that I was a leader. Even though he called me “Lit-tle Laura”, he made me feel big and strong inside.

In 2005, my grandpa got very sick. He was only in his sixties, and he was very happy and healthy before then. I was sad and scared when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He died only five months later. I was very, very sad when he died, and I felt lonely. My grandpa would not have wanted this though.

In December of 2007, I decided that the best way to remember my grandpa during the holiday season would be by living my life like he did, by making a difference and being a leader. I decided to honor my grandfather’s memory by trying to make a difference every day for twenty five days. I wanted to be able to do little things, like kids my age typically do, instead of HUGE things that are sometimes hard for kids like me. I decided to write about my adventures here, and I also created a challenge.

I challenged everyone who read my blog to TRY to do something every single day during the holiday season to make a SMALL difference in his or her world. I explained that whoever made the “most difference” in December would win a $25.00 donation to the charity of his or her choice on Christmas night. I SAVED ALL OF MY ALLOWANCE ($25) FOR THE MONTH OF DECEMBER, AND I WAS REALLY SURPRISED AND EXCITED WHEN SEVERAL PEOPLE  GENEROUSLY OFFERED TO MATCH MY DONATION (OR MORE)!

I found Laura's story so inspiring, I decided to contact her and find out more about her endeavor.  Here's our interview. You write about your grandfather inspiring you to make a difference every day for 25 days – are you repeating your month of doing good this December? I will be doing my challenge this year, like what I did last year. This year instead of giving a donation of cash to the charity of my winner's choice, I might do service work in a charity of my winner's choice. I also plan to invite readers to follow me on Twitter, and I will follow them. Then, we can keep up with each other and get inspired by all of the good things we ALL do to help others. How have you inspired your readers and others to do good every single day? I don't really know if I do inspire others to do good every single day. I hope that others would like to do charity work because I do. I really would love it if more schools  would join Working Together 2 Make a Difference. This is something I inspired others to do, or at least they say so! What do your friends think about your blog?  Have they also decided to do good things every day like you? Most of my friends think that it's awesome that I have a blog. I'd like to encourage other kids to do the same--blogging can be used to share your writing and get feedback, and even if  you just blog about your life, you can connect to other people who can help you learn things. Using a blog to make a difference is a lot of fun and really great! But blogging all on its own and doing service work all on its own are fine too. I know that people like to make a difference in their own way. It's nice when people tell me I inspire them, but it's not important for people to be just like me. My friends all try to do good things for others. Some of them inspire ME. They just might not blog about it, that's all. Many of them don't know how. I'm lucky because my mom helps me. How have your parents helped you in your project? My mom has taught me everything I know about blogging and has been looking at my comments and statistics and visitor links, to keep me safe. She always reads my mail first too. I have never received a nasty comment or bad email, and I guess I'm lucky that way, because I know that sometimes, people can do mean things. My Dad has supported me a lot too because he always helps me return my bottles, make my donations, and drives me every where I need to go. This summer, he and my mom carted truckloads of books to our local library when I did a book drive, for example. It took three trips and we still have some stored in our basement! You decided to spend 2008 with a new cause challenge every month – has that been successful? I do think that doing a new cause and challenge every month gave me more time to raise money and do more for that charity. I was really hoping that more people would try to make a difference for those charities or that other schools and kids would get involved, but even so, I raised a lot of money for one person I guess, and I have learned so much about local places that need my help. Now that I've been going for 11 months, other kids and schools are starting to invite me to work with them, and I'm really excited about that! I really wanted it to be more than just about me and my blog. I wanted to join with others to make a bigger difference. It seems like those chances might be starting to happen. What have you learned from this experience? I've learned more about blogging and using things like Skype and other technology tools. I'm starting to learn more about online communities too, and I'm just starting to use my own RSS feed. This has been important to me and to my mom, because these skills will help me do more over time. I've also learned that lots of people do charity work, more than I thought at least and there are a LOT more charities that anyone can help. I've also learned that it DOES NOT take a lot of effort to make a difference. Some people think that my blog and my service work is a lot to do, but it isn't at all. What do you want to do when you grow up? When I was little, I thought that I wanted to be a veteranarian, but now, I'm not really that sure what I want to be because I'm doing so much more in school. I think that I want to be a veteranarian, artist, pediatrician, and a teacher. And advice to Tonic News readers who want to do what you are doing? I think that if you want to do charity work, that you should definitely find someone to do it with you and to know what charities you want to help. I thought a lot about who I wanted to help and why before I got started. I decided to focus on local, lesser-known charities. For anyone who wants to use a blog to make a difference, I would get to know other people who blog for the same reasons and ask them to give you help getting started! There are a lot of great ways to learn things on line too. I learn a lot about blogging from the Common Craft website. It's a good place to get to know more about technology. I also know that Roger Carr and Beth Kanter blog about how they make a difference all the time, and they are good role models for me. There you have it - an amazing girl and our hero of the week!  Be sure to follow Laura at 25 Days to Make a Difference... Photo: Laura Stockman via Laura's blog Every week, we at Tonic News identify someone out in our huge world doing good and making a difference.  We like to think that we all can be heroes and want the stories of these awesome people to inspire you. If you have nominations for our Tonic Generation’s Hero of the Week, please email Dan at dan[at]tonic.com.