It’s important to give back
Getting to know Music for the Mission with Joe Stanley
Have you ever seen the movie Pay it Forward? It’s a beautiful story about the rewards we get when we pass on some measure of kindness, generosity, act of compassion. About ten years ago I decided that amidst some of the suffering and daily challenges so many of our friends and neighbors must go through, I thought I’d enlist our team to do some good and pay it forward ourselves.
But by the grace of God goes any one of us.
I always share that, it’s one of my favorite sayings. What does it mean? It means that any one of us could find ourselves in a similar situation to the man begging on the street corner, losing our home, our job, our life, our identity. None of us are immune. I see it everyday in my work here at Stanley Law. Good people who work hard, and then life throws them a real curve ball.
To help folks when some of those curve balls get the best of them,
myself and a group of other volunteers who believed helping our neighbor is important, started a non-profit organization called Music for the Mission. I’m a huge music fan. I love all kinds of music. And I believe in it’s power to unite people, to uplift people, certainly to entertain people. So I thought, what better way to do good and entertain and connect people at the very same time! Let’s use music!
Nearly a decade later, we’re raising money and awareness across Upstate New York in many communities, doing well by doing good. I believe we all have an obligation to give back, to help one another, to lift one another up.
So the next time you see someone who’s down and out, don’t look the other way. I’m not suggesting dig your hand into your pocket right on the spot, as that’s never what I do. I smile, I acknowledge they’re there, I send positive energy their way, and I let them know they’re seen –
and that there are great resources like the Rescue Mission, In My Father’s Kitchen, who we’ve partnered with several times, CNY Food Bank, CHOW, Urban Mission… wonderful organizations that we help fund that can give them immediate relief in their suffering.
We’re grateful to be able to do this work,
and to share this story. It’s important to give what you can to who you can. It does you and the receiver, and the world, good.
Music for the Mission is a 501c3 non-profit organization
that’s completely volunteer. All money raised in a particular community goes DIRECTLY back into THAT community. The charity utilizes its’ media leverage through Stanley Law Offices to partner with media across the markets we serve, to help spread the word about events, musicians, and projects that Music for the Mission, “M4M” is supporting.
If you’re a musician
who’d like to align your efforts with Music for the Mission, we’d love to hear
from you. If you’re a small non-profit and would like to apply for an M4M mini-grant, please contact us and share your story. If you simply want to pay it forward, to one neighbor, one friend, one person at a time, you can donate here.
