Date posted:
This story variation is for telling business-style stories which want to make people think about what they could do.
Orientation - who does the story happen to and what is the time and place that the story starts?
Describe a successful change. (be brief)
What would have happened without the change? (just a hint)
What is the happy ending?
Leave us thinking ‘Just imagine …’ or ‘What if …’ or ‘Just think …’ to link the story to another possible change. (leave room for the people listening or watching to fill in the possibilities in their imagination)
Over a quarter of a century ago in Brisbane, Bev and some friends were at a seminar and heard about how some women who were expecting babies felt hopeless. The friends wanted to do something to help these mothers.
Perhaps a large box of things for the new baby would help to cheer them up? A box with everything they would need for just after the baby was born – both new and recycled things. A box to help them look forward to when the baby came home.
The friends called it Operation Baby Basket, and it operated with help from people in their congregation and the community. Some groups knitted baby clothes for it. Some made blankets.
Bev organised a bin to collect recycled baby things in the congregation’s car park. Every two weeks volunteers would meet in the hall and sort out the donated baby clothes. A couple of people would take donated money and buy new baby things like creams and nappies and toys. Then the volunteers would put the ‘baskets’ together following a list. (The first ‘baskets’ were actually zucchini boxes!)
A whole collection of baby things were put into each basket, and then distributed to the pregnant women. Some baskets went to single pregnant women and some to parents who were poor. Sometimes the baskets were distributed through hospitals and community aid organisations.
For over twenty years the baskets were distributed around Brisbane and other nearby places to hundreds and hundreds of mothers and babies.
What if you could do something for your local community?
