A father-daughter duo from Cache Valley recently published a book featuring stories of service performed by children from around the United States, and even a few from outside the country.
From the story of a young boy in Georgia who had his mom stop the car so he could help an elderly woman cross the street to three sisters in Australia who donated their hair to help cancer patients, the new book “Unselfish Kids” shows service that takes a variety of shapes.
“It's these thousands and hundreds of thousands of small acts each day that add up to the large thing, so we should never not do something because we feel it's too small because in reality, it's the small things that have the big results,” Paul Parkinson said.
Paul and his daughter Sammie collaborated on the book after Sammie took some time off from college to participate in global humanitarian work. Sammie wanted a way to document the inspiring force children can be, so Paul suggested they work together to create a book.
“It's true stories,” Paul said. “This is not fictional. It's not meant merely to entertain. It's meant to teach. It's meant to positively shape culture. And that can only be done if we act if we only listen, we make our lives better. But the next step is how do we now make someone else's life better? And that's done by acting.”
Paul hopes when children and adults read the book, they will be inspired to use their talents to help others.
The book “Unselfish Kids” follows Paul’s 2015 book “Unselfish: Love thy neighbor as thy selfie,” which documented people making efforts to look outward and serve their communities. Both of the books can be found on amazon.com.
More of Paul’s interview with Utah Public Radio can be found here.